!K»9S»(NSSSN<S!iSKNSSS«»X«««ii!»!Sil««SSS«i«SN^

HIGH SPOTS

IN

Canadian History

BY

T. C. L. KETCHUM

Author of "A Short History of Carleton County."

SAINT JOHN, N. B.

The Saint John Globe Publishing Company Limited

MCMXXVI.

FOREWORD.

IN presenting this little work to the public, the author
pleads for sympathetic criticism and tolerant
allowance of errors, whether in literary composition,
in historical analysis, or in the omission of important
facts and incidents.

He trusts that the book may be found at least
interesting and perhaps instructive.

Illustrations appear of Sir John A. Macdonald and
Sir Wilfrid Laurier, two outstanding representative
figures in Canadian public life, all will admit; of the
old Province Building in Fredericton (replaced many
years ago), where between two elections the battle of
Confederation was fought; and of the original Parlia-
ment Buildings at Ottawa (destroyed by fire in 1916),
first used for the last session of the Legislature of the
United Canadas and, next, for the first session of the
Parliament of the New Dominion.

Portraits of Thomas Carleton, the first Governor
of New Brunswick, appear to be rare. The accompany-
ing engraving, taken from a paper contributed to the
Nova Scotia Historical Society Collection by Beckles
Willson, some years ago, was furnished me by my
nephew, W. Q. Ketchum, jr., Ottawa.

DEDICATION.

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
TO MY WIFE

WITHOUT WHOSE CONSTANT CARE AND ENCOURAGE-
MENT, DURING A PROLONGED PERIOD OF ILL-HEALTH,
IT COULD NOT POSSIBLY HAVE BEEN COMPLETED.

High Spots in Canadian History.

CHAPTER I.

Cartier and Champlain — Founding of Port Royal and
Quebec — Wolfe and Montcalm.

XN the City of Saint John, New Brunswick, stand
two monuments, which by reason of the events
they commemorate, if for no other, attract the
attention of the student of history, and should lead the
tourist, if at all of an inquiring mind, to think. One is
of Champlain, the courageous, farseeing explorer with
the prophetic insight, the pioneer colonist, the philo-
sophic writer, the skilled cartographer, who, at the dawn
of the seventeenth century, discovered the mouth of the
great river, which, with its source in the wilds of Maine,
flows for hundreds of miles through the Province of
New Brunswick, and named it the Saint John.

The other is to the memory of the United Empire
Loyalists, the founders of the city. As Champlain was
the forerunner in a peculiar sense of the French colonists
who laid the foundations of Quebec, so the Loyalists
may in a similar sense be regarded as particularly
representative of the English-speaking portion of the
population of Canada. Other forces, indeed, there are
which act and react on Canadian life, — those who claim
descent from the pre-Loyalists, the descendants of the
colonists from the British Isles, from Germany and from
other countries, but the impress of the Loyalist movement
still remains stamped on Canadian public policy and
Canadian social life. Just as in the United States, upon
important occasions public opinion and public sentiment
are influenced by the principles which guided the Pilgrims
and Puritans to the bleak shores of New England, so, in
Canada, in great crises, opinion and sentiment are largely
moulded on the principles that led the American Loyalists

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

to leave their homes and seek refuge on the shores of the
turbulent Bay of Fundy, and on the less troublous shores
of the St. Lawrence and of Lake Ontario.

It is strange, how differently we regard the passage of
a century of time, depending on whether our own or in
the remote past. Looking back a hundred years seems a
real infinity of time. Yet when reading of the dimmer
long ago, we jump placidly from century to century as
though from one year to another. A thousand years are
as one day. Upwards of a century passed between the
time that Sebastien Cabot discovered Newfoundland,
named the Island of St. John (Prince Edward Island),
gazed at the coast of Nova Scotia, "land first seen," and
the founding of Port Royal and discovery of the Saint
John River, while nearly three-quarters of a century
intervened between the landing of Jacques Cartier at
Stadacona (Quebec), his passage up the river to Hoche-
laga (Montreal), his return to Stadacona, where he
rewarded the kindness of the savage "king," Donnecona,
by treacherously kidnapping him and taking him, a
virtual prisoner, back to France, where he died, and the
actual foundation of Quebec by Champlain.

In all the history of the relations between the white
man and the North American Indian, it would appear
that in the vast majority of cases the original pact of
friendship and amity was first broken and violated, not
by the Indian, but by the European. The Indian did not
have to associate long with those whom he thought gods,
until he found that they had feet of the commonest kind
of clay. And Cartier's reputation, in spite of his
courageous adventures and the vastness of his discoveries,
bears an indelible stain by reason of his treatment of
Donnecona.

Consider the position of the North American Indian at
the coming of the white man. Suddenly bursts on his
view such a ship with great white wings or sails, of
which even in his oft troubled dreams he had never

[ 8 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

dreamed, and when his amazed vision beheld its occu-
pants, he saw men of his own shape, with heavily bearded
white faces, clad in garments quite as gorgeous in colour
as that with which he stained his bare face and body.
And the power of these wondrous visitants was shown by
the way they dealt out thunder and lightning, not
striking at random like the evil spirit who dwelt in the
clouds, but controlled and directed as they willed. And
when, instead of hostility, there was a disposition to treat
him fairly and more than all when they told him of a
new God of love and kindness, even his savage nature
was impressed and the better part of him came to the
surface. But in a very short time and on a very brief
acquaintance the Indian found that these wondrous
creatures were full of vices, quite as mean as any in
which he was capable of indulging, and that they were
much more influenced by a visible object they called gold,
than by an invisible being they called God. Suppose some
wondrous air-ship such as the mind of man could not
conceive of, something that would make the biggest
Zeppelin look like a circus toy balloon, were to land on
this planet from Mars, the airmen who manned her,
winged and apparently invulnerable, with marks of
superior intelligence and benevolence upon their coun-
tenances, and yet armed with weapons which, in their
deadly effect, even surpassed the invention of a German
chemist! And then these angelic heralds told us a lot
about God of which even the most profound of our
theologians had not thought, and settled to our satisfac-
tion so many disputed questions of doctrine and dogma.
And, just when we thought we had at length come into
the period of a new heaven and a new earth these Martian
visitors began to display the most contemptible vices,
treated us as slaves, defiled our women folk, lied and
stole and cheated. Surely when to our amazement we
found them quite as human as ourselves, would not our
first thought be to get rid of them and our next to quit

[ 9 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

believing in their deity and to look for one more worthy
of worship than him whom they so unctiously proclaimed
and so feebly followed.

Champlain writes, "The malediction and rage of many
Christians is such that one must take heed of them much
more than of infidels, a thing it grieveth me to speak;
would to God I was a liar in this respect and that I had
no cause to speak it." And, again, when he returned to
his desolate Isle of St. Croix, "I did judge better than
before that the savages were, though lesser civilized,
more humane and honester men, than many that bear the
name of Christians, having during three years spared
that place, wherein they had not taken so much as a piece
of wood, nor salt which was in great quantity as hard as
a rock." But the most damning indictment came from
the pen of Des Casa, an ecclesiastic, "The Indians do
not believe anything and do mock at all that is shown
them of God, being in truth firmly rooted in this opinion
of our God, that He is the worst, the most unjust and
most wicked of all gods because He hath such servants."

Shining exceptions there were, indeed, to these human
monsters, in the missionaries who risked, and in many
instances, lost their lives endeavouring to instruct and
convert the aborigines, and to their honour be it said, in
many of the French and English leaders in colonization,
themselves, the most severe witnesses to the gross offences
of their camp followers against not only the principles of
Christianity but against the ordinary dictates of human-

But Donnecona had his revenge. It was he, who first
named "Canada," when he courteously invited Cartier to
visit his village. Cartier adopted the Indian chieftain's
designation and applied it to the central portion of his
newly-discovered country, while above was Hochelaga
and below, Saguenay. Now the people of half a great
continent are proud to call themselves Canadians, for
it is no vain boast to say that in the science of constitu-

[ 10 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

tional government, in the arts of agricultural and
commercial pursuits, as well as in the grim art of war,
Canada stands illustrious as a strong, virile young
nation.

Columbus changed the face of the world. After his
fateful discovery, the extent of which he did not live to
realize, daring mariners of Spain, of Portugal, of Venice,
of Italy, and of England, set out, westerly bound, in
ships which could be pocketed today, almost without
being noticed, in one of our mammoth liners. Naturally,
many of them took a more northerly course than
Columbus and the first land many of them saw was the
bleak and repelling coast of Newfoundland, which one
of these hardy and rough-tongued sailors described as
"the land that God gave Cain." Nor would the shores of
Cape Breton and Nova Scotia appear much more attrac-
tive in places and on occasions. Verrazano skirted about
these coasts and that strange character, Amerigo
Vespucci, who accompanied an expedition in the life-
time of Columbus, in a secondary capacity, rounded Cape
Sable. Vespucci, in a day when writing was a laborious
job and few capable of exercising it fluently, wrote a
description of his voyage and laid claim to have dis-
covered a new continent, and so it came to pass, to use
the severe language of Robertson, that "by the universal
consent of the nations, America is the name bestowed on
this quarter of the globe. The bold pretensions of a
fortunate imposter have robbed the discoverer of the
new world of a distinction which belonged to him." It is
only fair to the memory of Amerigo Vespucci to state
that he does not lack defenders who have said that he
acted in absolute sincerity and that, in his lifetime, he
did not know of the great honor conferred on his name,
nor sought it.

Samuel de Champlaln, in all truth, may be said to
have been the first colonist of Canada, and that his statue
adorns more than one Canadian city, is but right. He, as
well as \'espucci, was capable of putting his thoughts

[ 11 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

on paper, and from his copious writings, we learn what
manner of man he was. He had faith in the future of
this new land. He looked upon it as the home of future
generations, a new France in very reality. His descrip-
tion of the Indians with whom he came both in friendly
and in hostile contact is edifying. The crude American-
ism that a good Indian is a dead Indian, would have met
with but scant favor from the great Frenchman. In his
opinion there was a distinction between some Indians and
others as between some white men and others. Some
were all for war and some were all for peace. Some
tribes had a strong pastoral bent and took pleasure in
this primitive form of agriculture, in the raising of
Indian corn, maize, and the like, tried to make some sort
of provision for the winter months, and in a rude way
had a conception of a community life, where each helped
the other. Other tribes, and it is feared the great
majority, put their whole trust in the tomahawk and the
bow and arrow, and like birds of prey, swooped down
on the industrious and peaceful element and robbed
them both of the fruits of their labor and of their lives.
The North American Indian had many vices — what
chance had he to learn virtue — and his cruelty to cap-
tives was fiendish. But, he also possessed qualities, not
lacking in the element of nobility, and mentally, he was
not stupid. In his pow-wows, the Indian chief displayed,
at times, a sagacity, a shrewdness and a craftiness of
logic, which frequently put to his trumps, the most
astute reasoner amongst those who came to rob him of
his lands and to force him to extinction.

Four names are peculiarly associated with the at-
tempted colonization of La Cadie, as the French
monarch termed Acadia, when he granted it to De Monts
— De Monts, Poutrincourt, Champlain, and Marc
Lescarbot. Lescarbot's record of his experiences, read
with Champlain's, gives a lucid idea of the situation.
When the site of Annapolis Royal came in view of the
gallant adventurers, Champlain was so struck with its

[ 12 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

beauty that he named it Port Royal, and Poutrincourt,
who secured a grant of the location from De Monts,
regarded it as a worthy site for a colonist settlement in
which he himself and his family would share. For some
years attempts were made at a permanent settlement and
in spite of the severity of the winters there came a time
when the outlook was almost rosy. The first blow was a
mandate from Versailles upsetting the whole project,
and when this insane policy was dropped, an English-
man, Argall, swooped down upon the last vestige of
the colony and demolished it. The Englishman came all
the way from \'irginia to put out of commission this
poor little attempt at settlement, as if the continent had
not room enough elsewhere. One would have thought
that stern nature and hostile Indians would have been
enemies enough, but not so. Frenchmen and Englishmen
and Spaniards, not content with slaughtering each other
at the behests of kings and emperors in Europe, took all
the pains of crossing an ocean that they might kill each
other on the shore of distant America. The attempt to
settle about Port Royal was the first real step in coloni-
zation on the North American continent, at least, and the
red savages are not to blame that it came to naught.

The English had, at least, colour of right. The
English king and the French king got mixed up in
parallels, so that the grants of territory which one made
to his subjects, took in the grants which the other made
to his. Quite probably the sovereigns concerned knew
that they were stirring up strife, for in whatever nook
truth may have remained hidden in those days, it cer-
tainly was not in the breasts of kings or of the
counsellors of kings. The English laid claim to all the
territory south of the St. Lawrence, the great river of
Canada, and, of course, this took in Acadia, known after
the grant to Sir William Alexander by James the First,
as New Scotland or Nova Scotia.

Port Royal henceforth was a much disputed point. It
was bombarded and stormed, taken and retaken, defended

f 13 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

and surrendered, ceded and annexed, time without
number, so that if as Annapolis Royal with its historic
associations, with its memories of De Monts and
Poutrincourt, of Champlain and Lescarbot, of Argall,
and the rest, it lies today in peaceful and dignified
security, well has it earned rest and repose, for of a
truth, its birth was in heavy travail and its childhood
amid stormy and troublous days.

When Champlain found that the settlement at Port
Royal was doomed to disaster, his eyes turned to the
rocky prominence on the St. Lawrence which, on account
of its peculiar formation, the Indians called "Kebec."
His determination to lay the foundations of a city and
fort that should guard New France was at length
rewarded and although his vicissitudes were many and
his hardships appalling, the project worked out and he
lived to see the day when, after the almost willing
surrender of the half-starved garrison and little band of
settlers to Kirke, the humiliation was of short duration
for within a very short while, under the terms of one of
those numberless treaties made between England and
France, New France passed again into the hands of the
country whose daring explorers had discovered it and
Champlain became the first governor. His vast efforts
were at length rewarded. He had penetrated far into the
interior, up the St. Lawrence, up the Ottawa, and if he
did not discover, he, at least explored the Great Lakes.
He had his reward in the almost certain knowledge that
time would see this vast territory peopled and flourishing.
When death came, she came and touched his brow kindly.
He died in the plenitude of his power, and if, perchance,
his gallant spirit still hovers about the ancient citadel,
it is with the knowledge that the flag of England — and
the flag of Canada — flies over a contented and free
people, the descendants of the founders of his beloved
New France, a people speaking the same language he
spoke, following the customs of their French ancestors,
and devoted very firmly to the ancient religion in which

[ 14 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

Champlain himself seems to have been a sincere,
consistent, and liberal believer.

It used to be said that all roads lead to Rome. In
Canada all roads lead to Quebec. Although but some
three hundred odd years since its foundation, Quebec has
lived a long life. A mere rocky promontory, covered
with woods and frequented with untutored savages in
canoes or on snowshoes, when many cities in the old
world had centuries of history behind them, it stands
today as one of the world-famous places. Statesmen and
courtiers, admirals and generals, plotted alike its
destruction and its preservation. The shrewd and
masterful Cardinal Richelieu planned how he could keep
it, and the great commoner, Pitt, planned how he could
take it. It led to grim jests on the part of kings and
philosophers. George the Second, reproached for placing
the serious task of its capture in the hands of a madman
like Wolfe, expressed the wish that Wolfe might bite
some of his other generals, while after its capture,
Voltaire belittled the loss of Canada as of but a few
acres of snow.

Up the tortuous path from Wolfe's Cove crept the
British on a memorable night, followed by the delicate
but dauntless leader, who found this path of glory led,
not to the grave alone, but to immortal fame.

Montcalm, equally brave and talented, handicapped
by intrigue, treachery, cupidity, thwarted at every step
where he looked for support, his worst enemies within
his own household, stood forth heroic in his hour of
defeat, as Wolfe in his hour of victory.

Historic Hochelaga and Mount Royal may become
forgotten and swallowed up in commercial Montreal,
the home of immense wholesale houses and the great
summer ocean port of half a continent. More modern
Toronto, once regarded as an intellectual and educational
centre, may, as time passes, become more and more a
city of busy factories and the home and breeding ground
of high protectionism. But Quebec will always remain

[ 1^ ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

unique among the cities of the new world, about which
will continue to hover all worth while in Canadian
history and art, poetry and romance, the Mecca of
Canada to which all eyes turn.

[ 16 ]

CHAPTER II.

The Pilgrim Fathers and the Puritans.

gI,L the land below the Acadian coast, claimed by
England was regarded as part of Virginia. While
Champlain was developing his colony on the banks
of the St. Lawrence, a great world event happened in the
landing of the Pilgrim Fathers on Plymouth Rock,
which, with all allowance for exaggeration in language,
may be regarded as the corner stone of modern democracy
and majority government. Strong believers in the
principles of Protestantism, it does not appear that the
Pilgrims favored religious persecution, although they
had suffered from it themselves and the age was one
when, strange to relate, a taste for religious persecution
was regarded as the mark of the true disciple of Christ.
De Monts, in one of his colonizing trips, had brought in
the same boat Catholic priest and Protestant pastor, but
they fought incessantly, even to blows, and it is said, on
one occasion when a priest and a minister had died about
the same time, the Indians insisted on burying the two
in one grave, to see if they would keep quiet there. The
Pilgrims inaugurated a benign government amongst
themselves and favored a merciful policy towards the
aborigines. While the remarkable document drawn up
off Cape Cod, with its assertion of the right to bind
themselves by their own laws, is in itself a declaration of
independence, the preamble, "having undertaken for the
glorie of God and advancement of the Christian religion
and honor of our King and countrie a voyage to plant
the first colonie," has no particular Puritan ring to it.
The coming of the simon-pure Puritans, a little later,
with their marked aversion to papacy and prelacy and
their inward dislike to monarchy, added a harder and
more intense note to the character of the Massachusetts
settlement, and what of benevolence there was in the
Pilgrim became swallowed up in the severity of the

[ 17 J

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

Puritan. Henceforth, the government of the colony was
more harsh and intolerant, and the Indians were looked
upon rather as incorrigible imps of Satan, than as un-
instructed wards of God. In one thing Pilgrim and
Puritan agreed, in their sturdy independence and in their
determination, that a new world should have new
customs and that the dead wood preventing political
development in the old world, should find no abiding
place in the new. Throughout the stirring narrative of
this determined band of wayfarers, the golden thread
which runs, and leads us to forgive all their peculiarities,
all their eccentricities, and even their intolerance, is the
sound though rude conception they had of the right of
every man to a place in the sun, not as a subject, at the
bid and beck of his overlord, but as a citizen with his
inalienable rights. The great contribution they made to
civilization was the implanting in the minds of their
fellow men, the world over, the idea of free and liberal
government, the germ of Lincoln's immortal doctrine "a
government of the people, by the people, and for the
people." Judged by results, the movement was stronger
on its political than on its religious side. It would be
impossible to think of Champlain and his company
subscribing to such a declaration. Paternalism, not
independence, was still the keynote of the Quebec
foundation. Yet, the Quebec of today, with all the rest
of the continent, follows the political principle for which
in those hard days, Pilgrim and Puritan stood, as
adamant, and would scorn the suggestion that it should
be satisfied with the paternalism of Champlain. On the
other hand, while Quebec, practically unanimously,
adheres both in form and substance to the religion which
Champlain practiced, comparatively few in New England
profess to practice either in substance or form the
religion that found favor in the breasts of Miles
Standish and John Bradford.

The great work, accomplished by these austere sons of
old England and fathers of New England, was the

[ 18 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

sowing of a seed which, if during their lifetime and
period was roughly cultivated and hampered with weeds,
still had within it vital strength enough to survive and
to be carried by the winds to congenial soil all over the
American continent, to Europe and to the remote parts
of the world. Further than this, the name of Puritan,
given to them, in derision, perhaps, was not without its
true application. They did aim at purity of life and
conduct in private and public, and if this led to severity
of manner and austere living, it is but the experience of
many others who try to tread the hard and narrow paths
of righteousness. A people whose main reading consisted
in the perusal of and meditation on the words of the
Bible, who were familiar with the history of the chosen
people of God as narrated in the sacred volume, who
steeped themselves in the warnful writings of the Old
Testament prophets, would, at least be schooled in a
knowledge that iniquity of life, alike In the nation as in
the individual, leads to destruction, while righteousness
exalteth a nation.

Probably history has never afforded an instance of a
more honest attempt to carry out the dictates of the
great book In which these hardy souls honestly believed,
without a single doubt In their breasts, as to the literal
accuracy of Its story of Creation, of the flood, of Jonah
and the whale, of any one of the other wonderful events,
whereby nature appeared to travel out of its usual
course.

It is idle to say that the Puritan movement in New
England has no part in the history of Canada, inasmuch
as the Loyalist was an evolution, in many Instances, of the
Puritan. Names which loom large In the government of
the semi-independent colonies on the Atlantic coast, come
in time to appear as prominently in the roll of the
American Loyalists. The Mayflower, sailing away from
persecution in old England, carried passengers whose
descendants sailed away from as hostile treatment In
New England. If the Puritans left England because

[ 19 J

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

of their dislike of monarchy, their grandsons left Massa-
chusetts, Connecticut, and New York because of their
devotion to monarchy. Such changes does time work. It
is true that the form, or perhaps the substance, of
monarchy had changed. The Hanoverian kings had
succeeded the Stuarts, and monarchy, if less brilliant and
romantic, was also less oppressive and autocratic. Prime
ministers were coming to rule instead of kings.

As time passed, a mellower spirit pervaded the colonies.
The wilderness, if it did not blossom as the rose, had, at
least been largely cleared away and was replaced by
fruitful fields. The Indians, howsoever troublesome, had
come to realize that they were a conquered, and perhaps,
a dying race. Hamlets had grown into good sized towns.
Living was becoming easier and more comfortable and
there were increasing signs of wealth. A spirit of
religious tolerance was gradually taking the place of the
spirit of sectarian despotism. Anglicanism with its
doctrine of the via media, had had a hard struggle for
existence. The Puritans were not disposed to be unduly
tolerant of a church over which had presided Archbishop
Laud, but in time the Church of England got a foothold.
A small, but influential body of Yale students, studying
divinity, forsook Congregationalism and embraced
Episcopalianism, and their example was followed by
many of the cultivated classes in the colonies, who came
to hold high doctrines with respect to church and state,
not far removed from those which prevailed throughout
the old country in the days of the Stuarts. Between this
class of citizens and the motherland the relations were
more intimate than they had ever been before. When the
official relations became strained to the breaking point,
they did all in their power to prevent the final breach,
and when it finally came, true to the teaching they had
imbued, they sided on the King's side and with the King's
forces. The breach had not come when the Union Jack
supplanted the Fleur de Lis on the ramparts of Quebec.

[ 20 ]

CHAPTER III.

Quebec After the Cession — Loyalist Movement.

FTER a period of military rule, the Quebec Act,
a measure having for its particular object the
pacifying and satisfying of the new French
Canadian subjects, was passed. Besides liberty to profess
their own religion and to use their own language, the
inhabitants were permitted to retain the French civil law ;
and the church was supported in the custom of tithes, as
amongst her own adherents. The French Canadian was
placed in a position as favorable as that which he held
before the cession, with the prospect of a better and more
stable form of government. In time he was to be intro-
duced to representative government, something old France
would hardly have consented to give him. A majority of
the New England colonists, who within a short time, were
to be found in arms against their mother country, heartily
disapproved of this conciliatory legislation, expressed,
when the final breach came, in a clause of the famous
Declaration, where the king is charged with "abolishing
the free system of English laws in a 'neighboring
province' and establishing therein an arbitrary govern-
ment, enlarging its boundaries so as to render it, at once,
an example and a fit instrument for introducing the same
absolute rule into these colonies." Did the American
revolutionaries really think such action was contem-
plated? Here is room for thought and discussion. By the
Quebec Act, the boundaries of Quebec were greatly
enlarged and included a large portion of what are now
the middle states. We must keep in mind, that, at this
period, the New England colonies were but a fringe on
the Atlantic coast. After the conquest of Canada there
was considerable of a movement of population northward
from the English colonies.

The attitude of these newcomers was one rather of
suppression than of tolerance. Toleration was not a

[ 21 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

marked note at that time, in the New England character,
nor, indeed, anywhere else, certainly, not amongst the
French. So, when the Quebec Act was passed with its
concessions to the Catholic church and to the French
Canadians, profound discontent manifested itself
amongst those English-speaking people who had moved
into Quebec, and their attitude and views were approved
and upheld by the majority of their fellow colonists to
the south. But the New England colonists were not the
only English-speaking communities interested. Nova
Scotia was, then, well organized, with an elective
legislature, and as much independence, perhaps, as
Massachusetts. Halifax had been founded, en bloc, by
a shipful of citizens imported from England. Nova
Scotians were no more willing to be slaves than New
Englanders, yet Nova Scotia made no emphatic protest
against the Quebec Act, nor had the slightest intention
of embarking on a movement leading to separation from
the mother country.

When all is said, that can be said against George
the Third, many of the charges brought against him in
the famous Declaration, sound, today, grossly exagger-
ated. He had his failings — the failings of a narrow
mind. He was arbitrary and obstinate, a most unhappy
combination. He had an absurd idea of his prerogative,
considering what means led to his occupying the throne,
and how his ancestor, the first George, got it. But he was
far from being a Nero.

A strong bid was made for Canada to enter the
federation of the rebellious colonies, in one of the
articles of Confederation, which provided that Canada
acceding to the confederation and joining in the measures
of the United States, should be admitted into and entitled
to all the advantages of the union, while the general
provision was that no other colony should be admitted
without the agreement of nine states.

The Loyalist movement, like the Pilgrim-Puritan
movement, is an interesting study. It is only now, after

[ 22 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

the lapse of a hundred years time, that the movement
can be impartially regarded and studied. The large
majority in the colonies were, undoubtedly, in favor of
the revolution when it was found that armed force must
settle the question. Up to that time, Benjamin Franklin
and other leading spirits worked and hoped for an
amicable settlement of the controversy. Franklin was
unceasing in his efforts, but to no purpose. When the
die was cast, it became necessary to take one side or the
other. The strife was too bitter to admit of neutrals. To
be as fair as possible, it is not unlikely that the Crown
had adherents who believed they were on the winning
side. Humanly speaking, it was quite as probable that
the rebellion would be suppressed as that it would be
successful. Britain had many formidable foes, it is true,
but she had capable allies, and the colonies were neither
strong, in a military sense, nor effectually united. The
majority had long been inclined to republican ideas.
Cromwell had not been forgotten, and while the revolu-
tion which displaced the Stuarts was popular, it was quite
a long call from William of Orange to George the Third,
and royal prerogative was gaining rather than losing.
Moreover, the acquisition of Canada was looked upon in
many quarters as a mixed blessing — an embarrassment
of riches. There was not much sympathy between
Puritan New England and Catholic Quebec.

A policy with the French Canadians, such as had been
adopted in the case of the unfortunate Acadians of Grand
Pre, rather than a policy of conciliation, would have
been more popular amongst the inhabitants of Massa-
chusetts.

The forcible expulsion of the Acadians bore all the
marks of military policy, and while there were not
wanting reasons to justify this severe measure — difficult,
perhaps, to understand now — in its results, it was a com-
plete failure, altogether apart from the question of its
moral justification. That the Acadians were badly
advised by bad advisers, the most reliable and impartial

[ 23 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

of Students and writers admit. But the last thing these
industrious peasants wanted was a troublous existence.
To France they would naturally be attached, and the
change of masters was not pleasant to them, but they
were essentially a pastoral and not a warlike people, and
above all things, they desired peace. As is often the case,
it happened with them, the punishment that should have
been meted out to the guilty fell on the innocent. But,
time has avenged them. Longfellow, himself a descendant
of the race and people who caused their dispersal, has
immortalized their sufferings, and on the very site of
their ancient home, a statue to the New England poet is
to be placed by their descendants.

The Loyalists were in the minority, but they repre-
sented a good deal of what was best in the colonies.
During the reign of George the Third, there was a
recurrence of that old sentiment of loyalty to the person
of the sovereign, which had reached its apex in the days
of Charles the First, and had continued, with more or
less intensity, until the last hope of the last Stuart was
extinguished. Many of the Jacobites had transferred
their allegiance to the reigning sovereign. The moral,
homely life of the old king, the simplicity of his tastes,
his fondness for country life and pursuits — old Farmer
George — his insistence on being regarded as an English-
man and not a German, were traits which appealed
strongly to the British mind, and which won to his side
many who had regarded his immediate predecessors as
usurpers.

There came to be a real element of doubt in the
Jacobite mind as to the famous Jacobite toast, —

God bless the king, God bless the faith's defender.
And bless, what harm in blessing, the pretender,
But, who pretender is, and who is king,
Why, bless us all, that's quite another thing.

And this sentiment, spreading to the American colonies,
found fruitful soil in the hearts of many of the pros-

[ 24 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

perous, contented and well-to-do of the inhabitants.
Flora Macdonald, whose loyal devotion to bonnie Prince
Charlie will never be forgotten as long as the world loves
romance, espoused, with her husband, the cause of the
king against the republicans, and is said, at a later period,
to have remarked, somewhat bitterly, on the ill fruits,
from a worldly point of view, her devotion to two kings
had brought her. The Loyalists admitted causes for
discontent, but denied that the situation was so serious as
to require resort to a fratricidal war. Constitutional
means of redress were still unspent. A few conscientious
but prejudiced of their number, considered that no sort
of oppression warranted the breach of their oath of
allegiance, and were as devoted to George as the non-
jurors had been to James. And so, the Loyalists refused
to join in the rebellion and took up arms on the side of
the obstinate king. They were subject to all sorts of
abuse and were covered with contumely. They lost, many
of them, their lives; all lost their property and all lost
many of their friends. There was nothing left for them
except to seek a refuge in another and a more forbidding
land, from the point of view of nature, and to begin all
over again. The outlook was far from bright. It is
doubtful if they had even the consolation of a hearty
farewell by a small body of friends, such as the Pilgrims
record, when they left the shores of an old Plymouth to
found a new. The triumphant patriots were not in a
mood to be lenient. The lands of the Loyalists were
confiscated, without any compensation, and what redress
they did get was from the British government after their
losses were proved before a commission. They came from
New York and other ports to Nova Scotia, to what are
now the Eastern Townships, and further west to that
part of Quebec now Ontario. The scene in no case was
entrancing. The whole English population of Nova
Scotia would not be over seven or eight thousand and
half of that in Halifax. Saint John was a bare and
rocky promontory washed by the raging waves of the

[ 25 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

troublous Bay of Fundy. There were a few settlers
scattered along the Saint John River, whose sympathies
were mostly with the revolted colonies, and there was the
remains of a French settlement at St. Anne where
Fredericton now is. There was nothing of any account,
in the way of a town, thence to Quebec. A combined
French and Indian settlement was at Medoctec, half a
hundred miles above St. Anne. Quebec, in fact far away,
was more distant from Halifax than London or Van-
couver is to-day. Three Rivers and Montreal were
known as growing centres, but almost altogether French.
Military posts, here and there, established a sort of long
distance connection, not as effectual as a wireless station.
Ontario was almost a wilderness. The remains of a French
fort. Fort Rouille, were on the site of Toronto. At the
mouth of the Niagara and the Trent rivers were embryo
villages, while Frontenac or Kingston gave most promise
of attaining to town importance. Where Ottawa stands
was a complete wilderness. And to this undeveloped
country came this dauntless body of men whose forebears
had contributed largely to the successful foundation of
the New England colonies. It is not the purpose of this
book to dwell upon their experiences in detail, but it may
be said that, in many instances, their hardships were
appalling, not a whit less so than the hardships the
Pilgrims and Puritans faced. Goldwin Smith, no great
admirer of Imperialism, speaks of the devotion of the
better class of the Loyalists as one of the three noble
things in the war of the American revolution. New
Brunswick, essentially the province and creation of the
Loyalists, was separated from Nova Scotia, and Saint
John has the distinction of being the first incorporated
city in British North America.

If Sir Guy Carleton accomplished great things, as he
undoubtedly did in the larger field of British North
America, his younger brother, Thomas Carleton, followed
worthily in his footsteps, in a smaller field, as first
Governor of New Brunswick. He associated himself

[ 26 ]

THOMAS CARLETON, FIRST GOVERNOR OF NEW BRUNSWICK.

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

with the struggling Loyalists and did everything in his
power to make their lot as easy as possible, so that a
writer on New Brunswick history of a very early date
(Peter Fisher) was able to speak of him as, "having in
every respect endeared himself to them (the settlers) as
their common father and benefactor." The record of the
Carleton brothers in the development of British America
is both unique and enviable.

By this time, we have Quebec, with its overwhelmingly
French population. On the east, the English provinces of
New Brunswick and Nova Scotia ; on the west of the
St. Lawrence and Ottawa, a growing English community,
in which the exiled Loyalists predominated. The greater
part of the northwest was marked on the maps as "un-
known territory," and had anyone predicted the day
would come when hundreds of millions of bushels of
wheat would be raised there, and when millions of people
would have their homes there, his prediction would have
met with about as much credit as one made, to-day, that
in the not distant future, peaches and pears will be
grown to maturity in the Arctic regions, and that a
cathedral — or to be more in keeping with the age — a
twenty-story seal packing factory will occupy the site of
the North Pole.

[ ^7 ]

CHAPTER IV.

More about the Loyalists — Upper and Lower Canada —

War of 1812.

CHE independence of the United States and the
exodus of the Loyalists, were the important events
in the formation of the Dominion of Canada. The
Loyalists assumed — or it was given to them — the designa-
tion, United Empire Loyalists. They were entitled to use
the words U. E. L. after their names ; but, while they were
Loyalists, they were also Americans of the genuine type,
and not unduly infatuated with the glitter of titles. Any-
way, the distinction does not appear to have been at all
generally taken advantage of. What is of importance, is
that they stood for a United Empire, as their fellow
colonists from whom they separated, stood for United
States. And, now, going on a century and a half since they
took their famous stand, the Empire to which they were
so devotedly attached, stands on a firm and apparently
enduring foundation. Again and again its fall has been
predicted and feared and hoped for. Again and again
strong hostile forces, sometimes from without, sometimes
from within, have assailed it and threatened its destruc-
tion, but in all history, no empire or commonwealth,
ancient or modern, has shown such marvellous latent
strength, founded almost altogether on sentimental attach-
ment. No imperious call of an overseas tyrant summoned
Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders to the war-
stricken fields of France and Flanders. Such a demand
would have met with scarce response. It was the spon-
taneous rush of a scattered family of affectionate sons,
hastening to the side of their mother, in the hour of her
extreme peril. No wonder the German could not under-
stand why Canada should be in the war. With his
training how could he be expected to understand? He
never knew, nor, probably, ever will he know, what it is

[ 28 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

to be a true freeman. "Loyaliste oblige," to coin a new
phrase out of an old. Descendants of the Loyalists joined
the Canadian forces, in large numbers, at the early stage
of the war. Familiar Loyalist names were found on the
roll call. Nor were these worthy sons of worthy sires, to
use Artemus Ward's term, "major-generally" inclined.
When they had not had previous military experience,
they took their places, manfully in the ranks of the great
crusader army. It was left to youths less well-born, and
less well-bred, and less patriotic, to start all manner of
wire-pulling among the Ottawa politicians, to find easier
jobs.

And yet the Loyalist migration is not an event, that in
annual celebration arouses enthusiasm in the minds of
the Canadian public. Amongst the French, of course, one
would not look for this, but with the English population.
Loyalist Day, if observed at all — and it is observed only
in a few centres — is celebrated in a solemn and per-
functory manner, and it is quite confined to those who,
perhaps, are more concerned with the pride of ancestry,
than with the fate of posterity. A certain kudos is
attached to the phrase, "descended from the Loyalists,"
as there is in the phrase "came over in the Mayflower,"
and an English Canadian, who has emerged from the
shade of social obscurity into the bright light of million-
aire row, finds little difficulty in digging up a Loyalist
ancestor, somewhere, even if his name finds no place
either in Sabine or The Claims. It is sometimes asked
how it comes about that so little notice is taken of the
Loyalist Day celebrations. The answer is that the
Loyalist movement was not a popular movement. It was
the attitude of a class, and was, in a sense, aristocratic,
away from, rather than an advance towards democracy.
Monarchical government, even if of the constitutional
variety, supposes ascending and descending grades in
society, and is the very opposite of that form of govern-
ment which asserts that all men are born free and equal.
People who turn their backs on a republican form of

t ^9 J

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

government, may be acting both conscientiously and
wisely, but the movement is looked upon as retrograde
and not progressive. There can be no successful
disputing of this proposition. The "patriots," as the
revolutionaries were termed, were considered on the side
of the people. That Washington and Lafayette were
aristocrats, does not affect the truth of the proposition
that the movement they supported and carried to success
was democratic. And the youthful American to this day,
celebrates on the fourth of July, the valor of his
countrymen in throwing off the yoke of an oppressive
and autocratic monarchical government.

Canada has been very fortunate in her governors-
general. Some were better than others, but upon the
whole they have been men, fitted to occupy the position
to which they were called. Before Confederation this
title was borne by the governor, resident at Quebec —
sometimes he was designated, governor-in-chief — and be
had a certain jurisdiction, or at least pre-eminence and
military oversight over all the British American pro-
vinces. Before the days of responsible government, his
duties and responsibilities were exacting and heavy, and
he had complete control of patronage. If the Dominion
of Canada, as now constituted, has in it the element of
durability, if in the days to come the experiment proves
a success, the fathers of Confederation are not entitled
to all the credit. Credit must also be given to such men
as Sir Guy Carleton (Lord Dorchester), Lord Durham,
Lord Elgin, and others of the governors general who laid
foundation stones of solid material. After the inde-
pendence of the United States, the task was not easy.
Leaving aside for the present, the Acadian or Maritime
Provinces, the conditions were complex enough to worry
the most wise and astute of statesmen. There was the
French majority and the English minority. The majority
ever fearful that they would become a minority, were
jealous of their special privileges and rights given to
them under the Quebec Act. The minority was increasing

[ 30 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

in numbers. The advent of the Loyalists was accompanied
by a considerable immigration from the mother land, and
disbanded soldiers were taking up the soil.

One of the chief tributes to the wisdom of British
statesmen, lies in the fact that while they make mistakes,
they do not fail to profit by them. The outcome of the
revolutionary war was a bitter blow to British pride.
Not only were the New England colonies now free states
but all the fertile country between the Ohio and the
Mississippi, as far west as Louisiana, which had been
ceded by France, passed into the keeping of the new
American nation. Experience is a hard school but the
lessons there learned are not easily forgotten. If the
Empire was still to survive with such an important limb
amputated, more skillful treatment must be accorded.
This was coming to be realized, not only amongst liberal
statesmen, but even by the ultra-conservatives and by the
King himself. At all costs, the Boston tea party must not
be repeated in Halifax or Quebec. The French Canadians
were treated with the utmost consideration, at the risk of
seriously offending the English minority. In time this
minority, forming the main settlements west of Ottawa
River, became influential politically and numerically,
and clamored for a separate province.

Thus it came about that Quebec was divided into two
provinces. Upper and Lower Canada. Lower Canada,
Quebec of to-day, remained French, as it has remained
since. Upper Canada (Ontario) was ruled along English
lines, adopting the common law and such civil statutes of
England as were applicable to the situation. In this way,
it took its place beside Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
In brief, the one was a French, the other an English
colony. Newark, at the mouth of the Niagara River,
was first selected as the capital of the new province, a
later choice falling on York, which still, as Toronto, has
a reminder of the meeting place of its first legislature in
Parliament Street. Upper Canada was allowed to go on
its own way, pretty much, saving, of course, the paternal

[ 31 J

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

oversight and management from Downing Street, plus
irritating pin pricks from arbitrary governors and
councils, causing irritating sores in the minds of the
inhabitants. Lower Canada, too, followed its beaten
track, but considerable trouble ensued there, owing to
the attitude of the French majority and the English
minority, the latter encouraged in its position by the
majority of the upper province. This minority, of a race
which was apt to consider itself superior in everything
because it was superior in business acumen, looked upon
themselves as a privileged people, by nature, and dis-
played a strong opposition to the special treatment
extended to the French Canadians, whom they purported
to regard as in every way, inferior. Neither intellectual,
thoughtful nor farseeing, the turbulent souls in this
minority in no way represented what was best in the
Loyalists. They looked to the present and to their own
advantage and were endowed with scant vision. Force
and money were their ideals. Nor were the French
wanting in demagogues, who were only too ready to
exaggerate, even, the too apparent failings of their fellow
citizens of English origin. They failed to take into
consideration, sufficiently, the generous policy, extended
to them, by England, whereby they attained rights and
independence of which their forefathers had never
dreamed. Even Papineau, of whom more will be said, in
a moment of warm-hearted generosity, rendered his
tribute to the generosity of England in this respect.
Trouble was brewing, which would only be postponed
by a danger from outside, threatening the very existence
of the colonies.

The young are always interested in the history of
wars, and most old people, too, for that matter. It is the
savage in human kind. Even the most religious, who
devote much time to the reading of the Bible, cannot, and
probably do not wish to escape from these exciting
chapters dealing with the war-like experiences of the
Children of Israel, while they learn from the New

[ 32 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

Testament, that there once was a war in Heaven — that
strange war which gave Milton the subject matter for
his masterly epic.

The Canadas were not long allowed to function
peaceably— aside from internecine strife — when the
ambitious nation to the south found occasion to declare
war, with the expectation, no doubt, that the last vestige
of British influence would be wiped off the map of North
America. This wretched war, less justifiable than most
unjustifiable wars, lasted for between two and three
years, during which there was much loss of life, much
cruelty, much suffering by innocent women and children,
much destruction of valuable property, and, when it was
all over, no tangible gain to either party, excepting that
the British colonists had shown themselves worthy allies
of their comrades fighting overseas, and worthy opponents
of the patriots of New England, who a few years pre-
viously had won their independence, in a much more
justifiable struggle on their part. And, too, the active and
effectual part taken by the French Canadians must
always be remembered by those not blinded by prejudice.
The history of this war has been written from all angles.
It fills many of the pages of United States and Canadian
history books. Certainly Canadians of this day have
reason to look back with pride to the stout and successful
defence of their country which their forefathers made.

Britain was in deadly grips with the great Napoleon,
and it was left to British Americans to make the best of
a hard job. How well they performed that job is wit-
nessed by the Duke of Wellington, who has left on record
his appreciation in these unmistakable, if complex
terms: — "The operations of the late war, terminated in
the year 181 ? by the Treaty of Ghent, which was carried
on with but little assistance from the mother coimtry in
regular troops, have demonstrated, that the provinces are
capable of defending themselves against the efforts of
their powerful neighbors." It is aggravating to hear self-
constituted advocates of Imperial Federation, forsaking

[ 33 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

real arguments in support of a sane enough policy, and,
instead, representing Canada as a country which, if left
to itself, would be incapable of nationhood, thereby
neither justifying their position by a courageous argu-
ment nor giving credit to their country for its gallant
military exploits of the past. Very heroic, indeed, was
the defence made by Canada, for it was a defensive and
unprovoked war on her part, and it is well to keep in
mind. Brock and Queenstown Heights, Desallebury and
Chateauguay, Lundy's Lane, the honorable names of
Tecumseh and Joseph Brant, and, above all, the
thousands of "unknown warriors," who in this, as in
every war, since the foundation of the world, have done
the most of the fighting and have reaped the least of
the glory. Nor must be forgotten that gallant New
Brunswick regiment, the 104th, entirely officered and
recruited in the province, which made the long march
from Fredericton to Quebec, in the dead of winter,
through the vast and untrimmed forest, accomplishing a
feat, which in point of the time it took and in point of
endurance, has seldom been excelled by any troops any-
where. And New Brunswick rendered this assistance
voluntarily, lessening thereby its own power of defence,
should an attack have been made on her borders, against
which there was no binding assurance.

[ 34 ]

CHAPTER V.

Struggle for Popular Government — Head and McKenzie
— Papineau — The Rebellions in Canada.

VERY soon after the close of this unhappy and
useless war, a struggle began between the
privileged party and the inhabitants at large.
The real rulers of the provinces were the governors
and their councils, while the power such representatives
as the people had in the legislature was extremely
limited. The members of the executive council were
autocratic, generally not very intellectual, impressed
with a sense of their own importance, and with the
idea that anything in the way of popular government
prevailing across the boundary line, ought to be avoided
on the Canadian side, as if it were the plague. Perhaps
in these days scarcely enough consideration is given to
the difficulties and perplexities confronting the colonial
office. It must be borne in mind that, at that time the
people of Britain had by no means attained to the
measure of self-government afterwards reached. Rotten
boroughs existed and some of the ablest statesmen were
returned to Parliament from ridings where the qualified
electors numbered scarcely a score, while thousands and
tens of thousands of the laboring class had no voice
whatever in the regulation of public affairs. It was the
day of,

God bless the squire and his rich relations
And keep us poor people in our proper stations.

The United States as a form of government was con-
sidered, yet, in the experimental stage, and many
thoughtful students of public affairs doubted its per-
manence. The French revolution, with its reign of terror,
was fresh in the minds of everyone. France was supposed
to be as insane politically as many consider Russia to-
day. Even the great Burke seems to have become obsessed

[ 35 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

with the idea that anything like popular franchise, was
a downward step, which must lead to the abyss of
anarchy. It is, then, not altogether a matter of surprise,
that those who held the reins of power over and in
Canada, should hesitate before they passed them into the
hands of men who might be disciples of Marat and
Robespierre. It was too early after the French revolution
for any but the few students to take note that the anarchy
which had shortly ago prevailed, was but the natural
sequence to the tyranny which had for long years pre-
ceded it. Just, as, now, only they who have taken the
trouble to think, honestly, have a confident hope that
within half a century, Russia may be one of the greatest
and freest nations on the planet. Siberia with its dismal
procession of student convicts — men and women who
ventured to raise their votes against intolerable oppres-
sion, must not be forgotten, when we think of the old
regime, the inevitable revolution and the not illogical
result, the soviet. "I will weep over the children of the
kings with you," says the republican hermit, to the good
bishop, in Victor Hugo's famous masterpiece, "provided
that you weep with me over the children of the people."
If there is one lesson really worth the learning in that
ancient volume, which we profess to value so highly, and
most of us read so seldom, it is that nations, like indi-
viduals, reap what they sow. It is recorded of one of the
worst of a lot of bad kings, that "he made Israel to sin."
Those to whom are entrusted the governance of their
fellow men hold a trust which they should, but
apparently seldom do, regard as serious in its possible
consequences, for as they do their work faithfully,
honestly, conscientiously and unselfishly, or the reverse,
not only their own, but countless future generations
benefit or suffer. Real patriots in all countries and in all
ages, whose lives apparently were failures, have been the
means of countless blessings to their fellow men of days
to come, while selfish tyrants and worldly-minded
politicians, cynically ambitious, regardless of all interests

[ 36 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

but their own, have been the means of bringing untold
miseries and unspeakable sufferings to millions, yet
unborn. Lincoln may be regarded as the representative
of the one class, Bismarck of the other. So, when we
watch the slow progress in the development of self
government in Canada, we must not withhold all credit
from those who had a distrust of the demagogue, whose
loud talk of freedom and liberty was frequently but a
cheap veneer, covering a character boldly and cruelly
selfish.

Two men, neither of whom was a native of the
continent, seem to have been the principal factors in the
Upper Canada rebellion. It would be difficult to conceive
of two public men more diametrically opposite in charac-
teristics than Sir Francis Bond Head, the Lieutenant
Governor of Upper Canada, and William Lyon
McKenzie, the ardent and radical reformer. Head came
of a family of great antiquity in Kent, and had a strain
of foreign blood through his lineal descent from a
Portuguese physician, who accompanied the spouse of
Charles H, to England. He was an avowed aristocrat,
a sincere monarchist and loyalist, a profound believer in
the British constitution as it existed in his day, a defender
of privilege, an advocate of the House of Lords in all its
glory, and an out and out church and state man. He
hated republicanism, and looked upon all reformers as
potential republicans. It has been said that his appoint-
ment was a mistake, that the government meant to select
his kinsman. Sir Edmund Head, who later became
Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick and subse-
quently Governor General, a man of much more liberal
views and more conciliatory attitude than his cousin.
Perhaps this is why the reformers of Upper Canada
welcomed the coming of Sir Francis, as a friend to
reform, which he assuredly was not. Yet he was a man
of high character and of supreme courage. During the
dark days of the approaching rebellion, when informed
that the United States might lend a hand in support of

[ 37 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

the rebels, on the ground that they were striving to shake
off the manacles of an arbitrary government, he replied,
"let them come if they dare." He agreed to the regular
troops being removed to Lower Canada for the suppres-
sion of the rebellion there, relying, and with good ground
as it turned out, on the volunteers and the loyalty of the
population. He scoffed at the idea of responsible govern-
ment which he termed "odious." Yet, he was a great
admirer of conditions in the province over which he was
called to rule, and the climate he thought bracing and
glorious.

He paid a high tribute to the amazing powers of
expression and eloquence and reasoning amongst the
chiefs of the Indian tribes with whom he made, on behalf
of his sovereign, a solemn treaty. The spokesman of the
tribes concerned, on this occasion, he said, made "an
exordium, which in composition and mode of utterance
would have done credit to any legislative assembly in the
civilized world," and he added words expressive of the
pleasure it gave him to visit "that simple, high-bred and
virtuous race of men, the aborigines of the forest." He
had a good word to say of the French Canadians. The
people with whom he came in contact, in a social way, he
liked, and his devotion to his friend. Chief Justice
Beverley Robinson, was almost pathetic. After he was
recalled to England, he, again and again, urged that
Robinson should be heard, before Parliament, in opposi-
tion to the union of the Canadas and seemed to think,
that if he were heard, his argument would be convincing
and irrefutable. He bitterly opposed Lord Durham,
whose report he intimated was that of a man bereft of
his senses, and irresponsible for his actions.

McKenzie was probably, in principle, a republican,
and one feels that if he had been in the New England
colonies at the time of the revolution, he would have
been on the side of the patriots, and with the minute men
of Lexington, just as Head would, most assuredly, have
been on the side of the King. It is not unlikely that this

[38]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

forceful and talented Scotchman had formed his concep-
tion of kings from two examples, the one, that indiscreet
monarch who tried to force episcopacy on a people to
whom it was, at the time, at least, hateful ; the other of a
different house, whose brother was known as the "butcher
of Culloden." In Canada he found, if not an arbitrary
king, a queen's arbitrary representative, in the person of
Head, and an arbitrary prelate in the person of Bishop
Strachan, who by a strange coincidence, was a Scotchman
like himself. But McKenzie did not advocate anything in
the way of republicanism at the beginning of his career.
He is said to have written a brief in favor of a union of
the British provinces.

He was an able journalist, and a journalist of the day
when the editor, and not a joint stock company limited,
directed the policy of the paper. When some hot-headed
youths, who did little credit to the cause they were allied
with, broke into his office and scattered his type, he ap-
pealed to the courts for redress, and a jury of his
countrymen gave him substantial damages. He was a
convincing writer and attained a great measure of popu-
larity. He was the first Mayor of Toronto, and was
elected to the legislature. Not allowed to take his seat,
he again and again appealed to the constituency, and
again and again was triumphantly returned. He was a
sort of Canadian Wilkes. But with all his qualities of
mind and heart he lacked the grace of moderation, and
his extreme views, which seemed to deepen as time went
on, withdrew from him the support of many of the more
restrained reformers. Howe, fighting the battles of the
reformers in Nova Scotia, was utterly opposed to the
violent means adopted by McKenzie, and his French
Canadian confrere, Papineau, which he defined as
"impolitic, unjustifiable and cruel." Baldwin in Upper
Canada, pursued the course wiiich recommended itself to
Howe.

Leaving aside for the present the conditions which led
to the outbreak of rebellion in Lower Canada, one cannot

[ 39 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

understand why, under ordinary circumstances, the
necessary reforms should not have been accomplished as
easily and as gradually in Upper Canada as in Nova
Scotia and in New Brunswick. There were the same
stamp of people in the three provinces. Had there been a
less arbitrary governor than Head and a less violent
agitator than McKenzie, there would probably have been
no rebellion. Upper Canada gained no more by this
unhappy outburst with its loss of decent men's lives by
bullet and scaffold, than the provinces by the sea gained
by peaceful means. Extremists on any side are always a
danger, and in most instances, fate seems to spare their
lives at the expense of the lives of more innocent follow-
ers. Neither of the two opposing chiefs gained much
credit to himself. Head was recalled, and, his life being
threatened, at the advice of friends, left quietly and by
a back door, through the port of New York for home.

McKenzie was banished and underwent much hardship
in his exile. He returned in time to Toronto, but his last
days do not appear to have been very happy. To the man
who can see humour in even tragic situations, there is a
note of humour in Head, from his mansion, offering
a reward for the apprehension of McKenzie, and
McKenzie, from his seat on his "republic" on Navy
Island, offering a counter reward for Head's head.

The dissatisfaction in Lower Canada was, certainly,
not less than in the sister province west of the Ottawa.
It was even, if anything, more aggravated by reason of
the fact that the large majority was of an alien race to
the powers that be. Louis Joseph Papineau was a force-
ful and aggressive personage, a man of magnetic
attraction, and endowed with a power of eloquence which
often led him to say things, which, afterwards, his better
judgment must have advised had been better unsaid, or
said in a different way. He was a true son of the soil, a
native of the province, the son of a notary, and in his
younger days was an officer in the militia and had served

[ 40 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

in the War of 1812. He was one of the first to throw
himself ardently into the agitation for responsible gov-
ernment. As speaker of the assembly, he was in constant
opposition to, and in conflict with the governor and his
executive. He was much farther in advance of his
admiring supporters than McKenzie in Upper Canada
and Howe in Nova Scotia, of theirs. If the ordinary
English-speaking farmer had — as he undoubtedly did
have — a vague idea of just how responsible government
was going to directly benefit him, the French Canadian's
conception of this reputed blessing must, in the nature of
things, have been even more vague. The English colonist
looked over the American boundary, and he saw a people
who had a far larger share of government than he had,
a people who fixed their own tariff, and whose legislative
assembly was a real governing body. Perhaps he did not
notice that they had any more real freedom or lived any
happier lives, but at the same time, he may well have
wondered why he should not be entrusted with at least a
large part in the government of the land, where he
produced the wealth. Was he not as intelligent as his
fellow Yankee, and did he not spring from the same
stock, that had ever been advancing along the path of
popular rights since the day of Magna Charta"?

The French Canadian was in another class altogether.
He had been brought up on paternalism, and the doctrine
of high authority, spiritual and temporal. The French
Revolution had left him untouched and untainted. The
step, for him, towards the goal of republicanism was a
very long step indeed, and if he started going too fast,
he might find himself as uncontrolled and as uncon-
trollable as his erring cousins in the motherland. The
church, while it had no particular reason to love England
and the English much, loved revolution and the revolu-
tionary less. But Papineau was one of those magnetic
individuals who can persuade his followers to go at
almost any length on the spur of the moment. He could
sway the mob with his commanding presence and his

[ 41 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

burning eloquence. More, even, than McKenzie and very
much more than Howe or Baldwin, he appealed to the
emotions, and he had a much more emotional kind of
people, more apt to be led by the heart than by the head,
to appeal to. They had not acquired the habit of sus-
tained reasoning. They were of the sort apt to rush
headlong into difficulty without counting the cost, and
to be sorry when it was too late in the day to undo the
mistake. Just what this extraordinary man expected to
accomplish or had in view, it is difficult, even at this
stage, to understand. He could hardly have expected,
considering the growing animosity between English and
French that a union of any duration could be effected
between the hard-headed and calculating English-speak-
ing democrat and the warm-hearted and impulsive habi-
tant. Nor could he, reasonably, have anticipated the
establishment of a French Canadian republic on the
banks of the St. Lawrence, which would be liable to meet
with little sympathetic support from the hierarchy and
clergy of the province, whose influence with the inhabi-
tants, even the eloquence of a Papineau could not, for
long, affect. Even his fellow republicans below the forty-
fifth parallel would be apt to view with some sort of
cynicism, a republic made up of French Canadians. It
may well be that Papineau was a convinced, a patriotic
and sincere republican, but, if he were, he must have
known that neither by training nor inclination was the
ordinary habitant calculated to follow him with that
determination, persistency, steadfastness and devotion
necessary for the accomplishment of revolution. When
matters were at the most strained point, Papineau and
McKenzie had a conference in the City of Quebec. It
would be most interesting to know what took place there
between these two men, and what their real plans were —
just what goal they were making for and expecting to
reach, and by what means. There are many things in
Papineau's career which lead us to the belief that he
would have been more at home on the banks of the Seine

[ 42 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

than on the banks of the St. Lawrence, that his proper
place would have been with the revolutionaries of old
France, and that Quebec, the most conservative of
provinces or countries, was the wrong sphere for his
progressive and radical activities. Yet, that he was far-
seeing, and was not void of the gift of prophecy is shown
by his prediction, read with interest in the light of present
day events, "the time has gone by when Europe can give
monarchs to America. The epoch is approaching when
America will give republics to Europe."

The rebellions were quelled, after no inconsiderable
loss of life and property. The utmost severity was dealt
out, in Toronto, to a few of the leaders of the insurrec-
tion, the descendants of whom, are today among the
city's most honoured citizens. McKenzie and Papineau
both went into exile, but the rank and file of the rebels
were not treated harshly. In Lower Canada, the Loyal-
ists— those who styled themselves Loyalists during the
rebellion were not all, and should not be confounded
with, the Loyalists of the American Revolution — were
much in the minority, and were disposed to be over-
bearing, thinking that the only way to hold the majority
in hand was by a show of military force, and by debar-
ring them forever from all share in offices of trust and
emolument. In Upper Canada the majority was inclined
to take a similar line of action with the minority. Head's
refusal to sanction the appointment of Bidwell, a former
speaker of the assembly and a stout reformer, to a seat
on the bench, was the probable cause of his recall. This
talented but headstrong governor was all for rewarding
the loyal men who had stood by his side in the hour of
danger, and while he was willing to extend leniency to
the men in the ranks of the revolutionaries, he had no
word of sympathy, or consideration, or forgiveness for
the instigators and leaders.

Some years later, after the union of the two provinces,
when Lord Elgin, Durham's son-in-law, was Governor
General, he gave his assent to a rebellion losses bill.

[ 43 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

Because some compensation was given to some of those
who had suffered loss, whose sympathies and, possibly,
actions were on the side of the would-be revolutionaries,
there was angry protest from the Loyalists, The governor
was insulted, pelted with stones and rotten eggs, and
narrowly escaped serious damage to his person. So hostile
was the mob, that it lost all control of itself, as mobs,
once run amuck, always do. They set fire to the parlia-
ment buildings and burned them to the ground, whereby
the good City of Montreal has suffered to this day, for
never since has a legislature sat in the metropolis. The
protesting leaders talked freely and loudly of annexation
to the United States, which caused some considerable
embarrassment to their political successors of a future
day, when the opposite party was supposed to have
leanings, or at least a slight cant, in that direction. It is
rather amusing to find that in times of great excitement
in those early and strenuous days, both parties, when
shorn of power, if they did not really cast longing eyes
to the great and growing democracy to the south,
intimated to those in authority overseas that they did.
McKenzie at one time at all events advocated annexa-
tion or at the very least a republic of his own.

Papineau boldly talked of it, while on one occasion the
loyal minority in Lower Canada, before the union, loudly
asserted if things did not become more to their liking it
would be found that they would continue "to be English
at the expense of being British," a veiled but unmis-
takable threat. And yet, if a public man or a public
journal in England expressed the view that it would be
better for the colonies to become independent, a howl
went up from this side of the water that we were being
deserted, and were being left — a helpless prey — to fall
into the rapacious maw of the American spread eagle.

[ 44 ]

CHAPTER \ I.

Durham and His Report Joseph Howe — New

Brunswick Boundary Dispute.

IT may be taken as a truism that a colonizing
people are not gifted with the grace of conciliation.
Their lives are active, energetic, combative. They
must struggle with nature for a living, and they have
neither the opportunity nor the inclination for thought
and contemplation. In the nature of the thing, practical,
they have a scorn for the theoretical and the idealistic. A
leisured class, on the other hand, has every reason for
being tolerant and considerate and delights in the study
of philosophy, without which no real statesmanship can
exist. To the everlasting honour of the representatives
of the leisured class in England who had largely to deal
with the Canadian problem, they showed a tolerance, a
leniency, a consideration, and a forbearance to both
sides of the angry controversy, which neither would
show to the other. They seem to have looked upon the
Canadas as noisy schoolboys, alive and overbubbling
with physical health, who thoroughly enjoyed fistic
encounters, but who, as they grew up, would become
under the influence of reason. And, so, when the question,
what to do about the Canadas became a very vital one
on the floors of the Parliament at Westminster, and in
the English press, when, even the girlish sovereign, just
ascended the throne, was forming her opinions of the
subject, according to the instructions and advice of
her first prime minister and political mentor. Lord
Melbourne, it was to the leading minds, who sat in
consultation in famous Downing Street, that the world
looked for a solution of the perplexing question.

The selection of Lord Durham as governor general
and special commissioner, whether the choice was by
happy chance, or by deliberate consideration, was a
stroke of political sagacity. It was largely to depend on

[ 45 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

this man as to whether the agitation and unrest in the
Canadas would end in a preserving or a destroying
revolution. Through the influence of his masterly report
the former came about. It surely is the irony of fate that
so many of the world's reformers see but little, if any,
fruits of their labor. Durham was not of the few
fortunate exceptions. He died within a very short while
after his report, the subject of bitter discussion and
debate, was finally adopted, and he had no way of
knowing that coming generations would forever associate
his name with the foundation of the premier dominion in
the British commonwealth of nations. It was upon
pressure from Lord Melbourne that he undertook the
trying task of endeavouring to reduce chaos into order,
and to effect a settlement of the much-debated Canadian
question. It is characteristic of the man and his political
views, that after his resignation owing to lack of support
from the then home government, while official welcome
home was withheld, he met on his arrival with a popular
demonstration of approval. When a man has taken a
large part in the formation of a nation, people listen with
patience to a relation of leading incidents in his life,
private as well as public, and look for something more
distinctive than a paid paragraph in a Who's Who.
Lord Durham, to whom, as has already been said,
Canada owes so much and whose celebrated report has
been styled "one of the greatest state papers in the
English language," was born some few years before the
dawn of the nineteenth century and died in his forty-
fourth year, at an age when many public men are only
coming into notice. His name was John George Lambton,
and he came of a renowned Whig family. He, himself,
after a short experience in the army, entered public life
as an ardent and advanced reformer, so much so that he
earned the nickname of "Radical Jack."

He favored the utmost extension of the franchise, and
was one of the leading promoters of the famous Reform
bill. On his father-in-law, Lord Grey, becoming prime

[ 46 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

minister, Lambton was taken into the cabinet. After-
wards, he was raised to the peerage, but his elevation to
a seat in the gilded chamber does not appear to have
affected his advanced views in the least. He was a
friend of the great political economist, John Stuart Mill.
In his early days he touched hands with Lafayette, while
before his demise he formed an acquaintance with, and
won the admiration of Benjamin Disraeli. On his arrival
in Canada, Durham set upon his task with the utmost
promptitude. In a short time he amassed an amount of
information of the utmost importance. Evidently it was
not his intention to beat about the bush, but to get at the
root of the matter at once. In his report, it will be noted
that he avoids those "frauds of language" which, as he
says, he met with when he tried to get at the real motives
inspiring the parties to the controversy. By this apt term
he indicates that actual motives were hidden or attempted
to be hidden, and more plausible and worthy ones put
forward as the main springs of action. But such subter-
fuge was useless in his case. When he, himself, came to
make up his report he did not mince matters but called a
spade a spade and not a loving cup.

Just about the time that the rebellions in the Canadas
were coming to a head, a young man, named Joseph
Howe, was elected a member of the Nova Scotia Legisla-
ture, for the City of Halifax. His father was King's
Printer and Postmaster General, and an earlier ancestor
had fought on the side of the King at Bunker Hill, so
that Howe was of good British and Loyalist ancestry.
Nor through his long stormy and creditable political
career did this remarkable and talented man ever swerve
in his devotion to British ideals and British customs. He
gloried in the glory of Britain's past and predicted
greater glory for the future. Animated by a most
patriotic zeal and affection for his native land, Nova
Scotia, or, Acadia, as he often called it in his prose and
poetical writings, the thought never entered his mind
that Nova Scotia should do anything to weaken the tie

[ 47 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

binding her to the mother land. Taken from school at a
very early age, he was thrust into the best kind of an
advanced school, perhaps, a newspaper office. That his
parents were cultured, is evidenced by the culture, with-
out the aid of a college or even a high school education,
he, himself, displayed. He mastered the classics and
became a writer of classics himself. He began his career
by associating himself with those advocating responsible
government. His vigorous pen brought him into conflict
with the magistrates of Halifax, who, there, as elsewhere
in the British American colonies, had the system of local
government in their hands. Arrested on a charge of
criminal libel and tried before a jury, he handled his
own case with such ability and dexterity that he was
triumphantly acquitted, belying for once, at least, the
generally accepted maxim, that the man who is his own
lawyer has a fool for a client. His fearless attacks on
persons in authority, who, he considered, were impeding
progress, led to his being challenged to fight duels. He
ignored several challenges on conscientious grounds, now,
at all events easily understood, but finally the absurd
charges of cowardice to which he was subject, so wrought
upon him that he accepted a "meeting." Under the par-
ticular rules of this duel, the parties were not to fire
simultaneously, but drew lots to decide who would have
the first shot. Howe's opponent won the toss, and by
good fortune, rather than intention, he missed his aim.
Howe responded by firing in the air. Needless to say he
was not bothered by any more challenges, nor was he
again charged with cowardice. In the early part of his
career he was a strong advocate of representation in the
Imperial Parliament, and at one time he advocated a
union of the British American colonies in some sort of
federation. Nearly three-quarters of a century ago he
predicted the time, when some of those then living would
hear the whistle of the steam engine in the passes of the
Rocky Mountains, and when the journey from Halifax
to the Pacific would be made in five or six days. Strange

[ 48 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

to say when the scheme of Confederation developed into
a practical question he set himself against it. He was
present at neither the Charlottetown nor the Quebec
conferences. His convincing eloquence was used in
opposition to the scheme. Just what motives inspired him
it is difficult to say. He may have thought it was against
the interests of Nova Scotia, and he was not alone in that
respect. He may have had the opinion that a legislature
about to dissolve should not decide a question which
should have been referred to the people at large.

As a matter of fact the government in Nova Scotia
which approved Confederation was defeated on the first
occasion that it went to the people. Or, like many other
great men, it may have been the vulnerable heel of
Achilles. Dr. Tupper was coming to the front and was
as forcible and earnest in his advocacy of Confederation
as Howe was against it. This may have had some
influence in deciding his action. It is hard for a man like
Howe, so long the idol of his compatriots, to brook a
rival. He was severely attacked, in that, after Confeder-
ation became a fact, he entered the government. Yet, he
may have been and probably was entirely sincere and
patriotic in the action he then took. In as vital a question
as Confederation a man might well be opposed to a
measure involving such a radical change, yet when it
became a fact, conceive it his duty to drop opposition and
lend a helping hand in manning the ship, and this Howe
did. But his great work — his magnum opus — was the
securing of self-government for his native province,
through constitutional means.

As time passes the name of Joseph Howe will increase
rather than decrease in public estimation. He was Nova
Scotia's great tribune, and was one of the leading men,
who have arisen in British North America since the
American revolution. A public man of parts, he was an
orator, who would have graced any legislature at any
time. He was a writer with a marvellous command of
prose and a poet of no mean attributes. A mere material-

[ 49 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

istic politician, with his snout close to the trough, by no
possible conception of the imagination could have given
thought to this utterance : — "A wise nation preserves its
records, gathers up its muniments, decorates the tombs of
its illustrious dead, repairs its greatest structures and
fosters national pride of country by perpetual reference
to the sacrifices and glories of the past."

While the people of the Canadas were fighting
amongst themselves, the Province of New Brunswick
was seriously menaced by an outside foe. After the
treaty of peace, following the American revolution,
difference of opinion arose over the meaning of a section
of the treaty, defining the boundary, particularly that
part which divides the State of Maine and New
Brunswick. The location of the highlands dividing the
waters that flow into the St. Lawrence River from the
waters that empty into the Atlantic Ocean was in ques-
tion. The British urged that a chain of hills of which
Mars Hill is the chief formed the highlands defined,
while the contention of the United States was that the
lands meant in the treaty were far away north, over-
topping the Bay of Chaleur. The King of the Nether-
lands, who was accepted by both sides as an arbitrator,
had recommended a line of boundary, nearly correspond-
ing with that which at present exists, excepting that by
the King's award more land was assigned to the United
States than the Webster-Ashburton treaty afterwards
gave.

Great Britain accepted the finding, but the United
States repudiated it. A large tract of land along the
River Saint John, heavily lumbered, and of fertile
acreage, when cleared, formed the "disputed territory."
While matters were in this highly inflammable condition,
lumber operators, from both sides, invaded the tract of
land in question. There were arrests and counter arrests,
and finally things came to such a pass that volunteers
from New Brunswick and volunteers from Maine faced
each other, and only an interchange of rifle shots re-

[ 50 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

malned to plunge the two nations into the horrors of war.
The occasion was the more serious that just at this
period, troops were passing through New Brunswick
from Halifax to assist in quelling the disturbances in
the upper provinces.

If there was any sentiment of encouragement of the
Canadian rebels in New Brunswick even amongst those
who were fighting the battle for responsible government,
it was not audible, and the troops were aided and assisted
in every way on their long march. New Brunswick was
calling out its available militia, who responded valiantly,
and Nova Scotia came to the assistance of the sister
province, so seriously menaced, with lavish offers of men
and money. Howe, the great reformer, rose nobly to the
occasion. When it came to be a question of danger to his
country or the Empire, there was not the slightest doubt
in his mind or hesitation in his action. Supporting a
resolution pledging the people of Nova Scotia to aid
their brethren on the other side of the Bay of Fundy,
Howe expressed the hope "that such an expression of
feeling would go with the resolution as to satisfy our
brothers in New Brunswick, that we are determined to
aid them in the coming contest in which they are about
to be engaged."

As every student of this question knows, the matter
was finally settled, without recourse to arms, thanks to
the sanity and saving common sense of the commanders-
in-chief of the opposing forces. Sir John Harvey,
Governor of New Brunswick, and General Winfield
Scott of the United States Army, who refused to be
stampeded into loosing the dogs of war, because of the
depredations of a lot of selfish lumbermen of both
countries.

In submitting his report, when Lord Durham said that
while he had expected to find, in Lower Canada, a con-
test between a government and a people, he found
instead, two nations warring in the bosom of a single
state, his statement was perfectly true, much as it has

[ ^1 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

been criticized and pooh-poohed as a dismal finding. His
picture of the social life of the French Canadians was
true to life and would apply in many rural communities
today. They were mild, kindly, frugal, industrious and
honest, very sociable, cheerful and hospitable, and dis-
tinguished for a courtesy and politeness which pervaded
every class of society, but, withal, they remained an old
and stationary society in a new and progressive world.
Completely obeying leaders who ruled them with the
influence of blind confidence and narrow national preju-
dices, they accorded very little, with the resemblance
which had been discovered in that high spirited
democracy which effected the American revolution. He
found that the government had made a very serious
mistake in not cultivating and enlisting on its side the
services of the professional classes, which, while derived
from the habitant population, was composed of individ-
uals, who, after the completion of their education,
mingled with the utmost terms of social intimacy, with
the class from which they sprang, and exercised a
tremendous influence in moulding opinion on public
questions. He found the French asserting the most
democratic doctrines, but apparently using their demo-
cratic arms for conservative purposes. Amongst the
English population he found a bold and intelligent and
somewhat turbulent democracy, continually professing an
extravagant loyalty and high prerogative doctrine, loudly
asserting their devotion to the British Crown and con-
stitution, very determined in maintaining in their own
persons a great respect for popular rights, and singularly
ready to enforce their wishes by the strongest means
of constitutional pressure on the government. Every
measure of clemency or even justice to their opponents
they regarded with jealousy, and they did not hesitate to
say that they would not tolerate any longer being made
the sport of parties at home. And these national preju-
dices he found, as we know to be the case today either
amongst the French or the English, exercised the most

[ ^2 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

influence on the least educated. Durham was convinced
that sooner or later the English race would predominate,
even numerically in Lower Canada. He regarded it but
a vain endeavour to preserve a French Canadian
"nationality" in the midst of Anglo-Saxon colonies and
states. At the same time he had a vision of a confedera-
tion of the provinces. He feared that the influence of
the French would be used to obstruct the government,
although honest co-operation of the various parties might
accomplish much, he concedes, to the alleviation of the
difficulty. To sum up the whole situation in Lower
Canada he found that the cause and root of the trouble
was racial, but although racial, not religious. He found,
at that time, that while religion formed no bond of inter-
course and union, yet it was an admirable feature of
Canadian society that it was entirely devoid of religious
dissensions. Sectarian intolerance was not merely, not
avowed, but it hardly seemed to influence men's feelings.
Whether this high tribute is still justified, the reader
may decide, but it bears out, what has been asserted, by
students of history, that any religious animosity which
may have since developed, was largely due to seed sown
by a newer class of immigrants, who brought it with
them from a land where it plentifully flourished, and
was apparently, highly prized as one of the chief charac-
teristics of its inhabitants. Indeed the problem was
singularly complex, and one to tax the ingenuity of the
most far-seeing statesman. The Assembly was the popu-
lar elective chamber. The Executive and Legislative
Councils, appointed by the governor, held a majority
which represented the English minority. The English
minority complained that when they petitioned the
Assembly for appropriations for better roads and other
facilities to foster agricultural and commercial develop-
ment, their petitions fell on deaf ears. The Assembly
did not see the need of these things, and also did not
wish to inaugurate any policy which would lead to an
increase in the English population or the English influ-

[ 53 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

ence. So, the minority turned to the Executive Council
and the Council carried out these required works, in
spite of opposition from the popular chamber.

"The Assembly complained of the oppressive use of
the power of the Executive. The English complained
that they, a minority, suffered under the oppressive uses
to which power was turned by the French majority. Thus
a bold and intelligent democracy was compelled by its
impatience for liberal measures, joined to its natural
antipathies, to make common cause with a government
which was at issue with the majority on a question of
popular rights." The situation in Lower Canada was
unique. In Upper Canada the problem was similar to
that which was gradually being worked to a solution by
the governments and people concerned in the Maritime
Provinces. It arose out of the insistent demand for
responsible government. The term, responsible govern-
ment, was used freely and was constantly in the mouths
of people, who, really, did not grasp with any exactitude
its meaning. In a nut shell it simply meant that the
government of the province should be in the hands of
the duly elected representatives, that the executive should
be answerable to the people who elected them. Up to the
time of the adoption of this principle, the governor ruled
and governed in fact as well as in theory. He was ap-
pointed and paid by the authorities in England and his
legislative policy was carried out in consultation with
them. The legislative assembly had only one means of
control ; they could withhold supplies, after all a very
effective remedy. The governor appointed his own
executive, often members of the entourage he brought
with him, and not as a matter of course inhabitants of
the province. The governor appointed the legislative
councillors and appointments to the civil service were
made by him, subject, of course, to the approval of the
British Government. Judges sat on the bench and at the
same time in the council at times, and they were generally
drawn from the ranks of those who did not favour the

[ 54 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

extension of popular rights. Just at the present time
there is some discussion about trial by jury, a mode of
trial which has been much valued, since the principle was
enacted in Magna Charta. The jurors, many times, stood
between arbitrary judges and the rights of the public.
Had McKenzie's or Howe's trial been without a jury, at
that particular period, the result would doubtless have
been different. At the same time the appointees to the
bench in those early days were men of honour, principle
and ability, and their decisions, after a long lapse of
time, compare favourably with the dicta of their suc-
cessors of today. And the same may be said with regard
to the appointees to other branches of the civil service.
They regarded their offices as places of trust, and had a
fine conception of the duty of service. But the whole
system was utterly in conflict with the idea of democracy,
and to attempt to impede the progress of democratic
institutions on the North American continent was about
as futile a task as to try to change the flow of the St.
Lawrence, seaward, and make it empty its mighty waters
into the bosom of the Great Lakes.

[ ^^ ]

CHAPTER VII.

Conditions in Upper Canada — Civil List Bill in New
Brunswick — Grey's Dispatch on Responsible Gov-
ernment.

aPPER Canada presented a problem not so
complex, but scarcely less difficult than that
awaiting solution in the sister province. True
the question of race did not arise. It was not English
vs. French; it was English vs. English, and every
student knows that civil wars, like family quarrels,
are marked by extreme bitterness. Indeed a family
quarrel of large dimensions, within recent years,
had caused the separation of the prosperous and
rapidly developing Atlantic colonies from the parent
state. Neither race nor religion had anything to do with
this, one of the most momentous separations in the
history of mankind. The situation in Upper Canada
and in the Maritime Provinces was much the same,
excepting that in Upper Canada, owing to rebellion and
consequent ill feeling, it was much more acute. The
Family Compact existed in Upper Canada. It also
existed in the Acadian provinces. This rather unique and
somewhat overbearing association of individuals and
families was mainly composed of United Empire Loyal-
ists. Naturally, they had taken a leading part in the
formation of the new British provinces, and naturally,
too, when the provinces grew and developed, they wished
to retain the leadership. But in the meantime, other
classes of people had come and soon became as numerous
if not as influential as the original founders. With the
introduction of the representative system an ever increas-
ing number of members came from these less aristocratic
classes. The governors and their entourages stood pretty
closely by the Compact, and the Compact being largely,
but by no means exclusively. United Empire Loyalists,
looked for support and generally got it, from the
Colonial Secretary's office in London.

[ 56 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

The ruling class were very strong not only on British
connection, but on British imitation. Upper Canada, they
wished to be as exact a replica as possible of England
and as exact an opposite as possible of the United States.
The more extreme of them seemed to wish to ignore their
own continent. The Clergy Reserves was really an
attempt to set up an established church. Large tracts of
land were set apart for the purpose of the founding of
rectories. This was very unpopular with the reforming
party, who, at least, professed to be averse to anything
like privilege in the matter of religious belief. Durham
denounced the principle of the Clergy Reserves. He
pointed out the difference between the position of the
Anglican Church in Upper Canada and in England. He
might have added that while the atmosphere in England
was Anglican, in the British American provinces outside
of Lower Canada it was largely Puritan. The position
of the clergy in the colonies, he urged, must be missionary
rather than parochial, an opinion which time has justi-
fied. Of course the real crux of the situation was the
struggle between the elected and the nominated branches
of the legislature. An elected assembly pledged to a
course of action in the management of provincial affairs
found themselves helpless in the face of the power
exercised by an appointed Executive and Legislative
Council. Such a conflict could not go on forever without
something breaking and there was the danger ever
present that matters might become so serious as to lead
to the obliteration of the boundary between the States
and the colonies. "The influence of the United States,"
said the commissioner, "surrounds him (the Canadian)
on every side and is forever present. It extends itself as
population and intercourse increases ; it penetrates every
portion of the continent into which the restless spirit of
American s[)eculation impels the settler or the trader.
It is felt in all the transactions of commerce, from the
important operations of the monetary system down to
the minor details of ordinary traffic ; it stamps on all the

[ ^^ ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

habits and opinions of the surrounding countries, the
common characteristics of the thoughts, feelings and
customs of the American people."

Here was the trouble in a nut shell. Representative
government in name, only, might work elsewhere than in
America. In America it would not work, with the
example of the growing nation to the south always
before the Canadian colonist, and the Commissioner pro-
ceeds to suggest a remedy for the disease. "If we wish to
prevent the extension of this influence, it can only be
done by raising up for the North American colonist some
nationality of his own ; by elevating these small and
unimportant communities into a society having some
objects of a national importance; and by thus giving
their inhabitants a country which they will be unwilling
to see absorbed even into one more powerful. . . . We
must remove from these colonies the cause to which the
sagacity of Adam Smith traced the alienation of the
provinces which now form the United States; we must
provide some scope for what he calls 'the importance' of
the leading men in the Colony beyond what he forcibly
terms the present 'petty prize of the paltry raffle of
colonial faction.' " A quarter of a century afterwards,
when the subject of Confederation had got beyond
academic discussion, and when the goal was in plain
view, John A. Macdonald, gave expression, on the floors
of the Canadian legislature to sentiments, singularly
significant and striking, in view of Lord Durham's
recommendation, "For twenty long years I have been
dragging myself through the dreary waste of colonial
politics. I thought there was no end, nothing worthy of
ambition, but, now, I see something which is really worth
while for all we have suffered in the cause of our little
colony." "The petty prize of the paltry raffle of colonial
faction" and "the dreary waste of colonial politics" are
complimentary one to the other.

When Durham came to sum up his findings and to
make his recommendations, it is interesting to note that

[ ^8 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

the hope in his heart was a confederation of all the
British colonies. He says as much, but regarded it as
impracticable at once, because he conceived that all the
powers the French possessed would be used to obstruct
the government. He half admits that time and honest
co-operation of the various parties might accomplish
much to the alleviation of this difficulty, but in his
opinion, time could not be extended. Something must be
done at once, and that something was the union of the
two Canadas, with a proviso that in the future the other
provinces, if they wished, might come into the union, or
form a federation. He considered English predominance
absolutely essential. With the larger population in Upper
Canada, and the substantial minority in Lower Canada,
an English majority would control in the united legisla-
ture. He then falls into error, in his confident prediction
that immigration from Britain will overcome the French
majority and that Quebec, in time, would become an
English-speaking province. His argument is based on
two premises, neither shown to be correct by the verdict
of history, at least so far. He thought a French Quebec
on an Anglo-Saxon continent a practical impossibility,
and he mistook the antipathy of the French Canadian to
a type of English, which he himself calls noisy and
turbulent in the Canadas, for animosity to the English
people at large, and to the Crown and Constitution of
Great Britain. Of animosity to the Crown there has not
ever been any indication amongst the French Canadians.
Indeed, they are, perhaps, more favourably disposed to
the principle of monarchy than the English. Authority
they are taught to respect, and monarchy and hierarchy
go well, hand in hand. But the French Canadian has the
idea, and who will say it is not a correct idea, the same
that Benjamin Franklin tried so hard to hammer into the
obtuse heads of the autocrats governing England in the
days before the revolution, that allegiance is due and
owing from Canadians to the King of Great Britain,
who is also the King of Canada, one of the dominions

[^9]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

beyond the seas, but allegiance they do not owe to the
merchants of Liverpool and Manchester nor to the
brewers and distillers of Glasgow and Aberdeen.

Turning from the turmoil and strife in the Canadas,
the commissioner extended his report to conditions in the
Maritime Provinces, which he did not visit, personally,
but where he sent Major Head, an official in whom he
had the utmost confidence. In these provinces there was
found much less discontent, because "there had recently
been a considerable departure from the ordinary course
of the colonial system and a nearer approach to sound
constitutional practice." This, it is pointed out, was
markedly the case in New Brunswick.

It has been remarked that men who accomplish great
deeds, seldom see the full fruition in their lifetime. Pitt,
heart broken at the successive triumphs of Napoleon,
bade his auditors fold up the map of Europe, as it would
not be needed for these many years. Washington and
Lincoln both died in view of political storms which
threatened the very existence of the country they loved.
In our day Wilson, with his noble attempt to induce
mankind to recognize that they are human beings in the
Divine image and not just brute beasts, and that war is
the peculiar invention of Satan, repudiated by his own
country, ridiculed by the knights of the shining sword,
appears to have been a failure. In a smaller way, as is
pointed out, Durham, striving for a solution of the
Canadian question, which would retain the colonies with-
in the Empire, died amid the execration of his political
enemies, and with the charges of cowardice and treason
in his ears. A colonial secretary about the time, one Lord
Glenelg, spoken of as "the last of the Canningites,"
passed out of office, in disfavour with his sovereign, and
condemned for his wavering and feeble policy. Yet the
provinces, where through his enlightened views, the
principle of responsible government was first tested,
formed such a high regard for him, that by special re-
quest his portrait was painted at the public expense and

f 60 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

hung in the legislative assembly chamber of New
Brunswick, where it still is, — a tine portrait and an
attractive work of art.

The changes in the way of constitutional reform which
caused such a commotion in the upper provinces, came
about comparatively easily and gradually in New
Brunswick. It is true that there were frequent and sharp
collisions between the governors and councils on the one
hand and the representatives of the people on the other.
It is equally true that, for a period there were processions
of deputations from the province to the "foot of the
throne," but at no time was there any hint of rebellion
or revolution. The reformers, led by Lemuel Allan
Wilmot, were as loyal to the principle of the British
constitution as the most devoted of the governor's
supporters. Wilmot, himself, came from an old and
distinguished Loyalist family. The entire population in
the province was in the finest sense of the term, conser-
vative. The original founders had come, most of them,
from the New England colonies and had been accustomed
to representative institutions, and to a certain measure
of independence in thought and action, which in no way
militated the idea of sound constitutional monarchical
government. Long before the rebellions in the Canadas
the first important step had been taken on the trail lead-
ing to complete responsible government. It came about
without much ado. In time it was decided that the
Executive and the Legislative Councils should be separ-
ate bodies and the Colonial Office recommended that at
least some members of the Executive should be chosen
from the members in the Legislative Assembly.

King William the Fourth is widely known as the
sailor king. He also bore the complimentary title of the
People's Friend. Once on an important occasion, when it
was something to have the ear of a king, the same King
William proved himself to be a friend to the people of
New Brunswick. It was early in the eighteen hundred
and thirties, that matters came to a deadlock between the

[ 61 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

governor and his council, apparently responsible to
nobody much, and the representatives of the people of
the province who were hard at work building up a pros-
perous community. A very large amount of the revenue
of the province was derived from what was known as the
Territorial and Casual revenue. Money received from
the sales and lease of Crown lands, was collected and
dispensed by the governor and his advisors, without any
reference to the wishes of the members of the Legislative
Assembly. Grants and leases were made to favoured
parties. This condition became in time so intolerable to
the stamp of men who sat in the Assembly and the
Legislative Council that a strong resolution was passed
with almost unanimity, and Mr. Wilmot and Mr.
William Crane were appointed a delegation to present
the resolution to the King and discuss the grievances
under which the representatives of the people laboured.
It is said that the King was very much impressed with
the wording of the resolution. His Majesty, perhaps
found the reformers of New Brunswick more reasonable
and respectful than the violent agitators of the Canadian
provinces. At all events the delegates met with the utmost
encouragement, and the result was a bill which they
brought back for submission to the legislature and for
the approval of the governor. But the governor, although
he had no very considerable support, withheld his con-
sent, and endeavoured to defeat the ends of the proposed
Act. He was sufficiently successful in his acts of obstruc-
tion, to make it necessary for the same delegates again to
cross the ocean and again to go over the ground which
they thought they had sufficiently covered. Among the
heavy lessees of these Crown lands was the New
Brunswick and Nova Scotia Land Company, which had
acquired the control of an immense tract of land, osten-
sibly for the purpose of assisting worthy settlers from
the old country in establishing homes in the forest lands
of New Brunswick. Those opposing the proposed reform
tried their best to have the proceeds of these lands exempt

[ 62 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

from the provisions of the Civil List Bill as the proposed
bill was called. For a time they succeeded, but Wilmot's
second visit brought matters to a climax, and he came
home assured not only that the bill would pass as it was
originally framed, but that Sir Archibald Campbell, the
governor, had resigned and that his place would be filled
by the appointment of Sir John Harvey, a gentleman,
whom the Province of New Brunswick has reason to
remember with affection and regard. The Civil List Bill
became law. It was a most important and far-reaching
piece of legislation. Under its provisions a certain sum
of money out of the Territorial and Casual revenue was
appropriated for the Civil List, that is the payment of
the salaries of the governor and all the other members
of the civil service of the province. The rest of the
revenue from this source was to form part of the general
revenue of the province. And it was further provided
that within a few days after the opening of the legisla-
ture the governor and council should submit a detailed
account, with vouchers of the expenditure of all the
monies derived from the Territorial and Casual revenue.
In a way the governor became responsible to the legisla-
ture. Furthermore, no sales of Crown lands in the future
were to be made except by public auction and to the
highest bidder.

At the time (1837) and under the circumstances this
was regarded as a very great concession in the direction
of popular government. It was hailed with shouts of
approval by all the moderate reformers in Nova Scotia
and in the Canadas, but met with unsparing condemna-
tion from Sir F. B. Head, the governor of Upper Canada,
who complained that the reformers of New Brunswick
were building a constitution for Upper Canada. The
Civil List Bill was the most progressive legislation
passed in any British colony, and the model for conces-
sions in other parts of the British American provinces.

Men's deeds for good or ill come up for judgment at
the bar of public opinion, long after the individuals have

[ 63 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

ceased their earthly labours. It is found that Sir John
Harvey's contributions to the work of preserving Canada
to the British Empire were most valuable. Assuredly he
was one of the enlightened and far-seeing of the colonial
governors. Not only did he consent to the Civil List Bill
but he approved of it. At the time of the Boundary
dispute, in association with an American general, he pre-
vented a dispute between the Province of New Brunswick
and the State of Maine from developing into open war,
the disastrous consequences of which no one could fore-
tell. After his term as governor of New Brunswick he
became governor of the sister Province of Nova Scotia,
and it was without doubt his co-operation with Earl Grey
that led to the latter's famous message, by which the
principle of responsible government was finally recog-
nized.

Just ten years after the passage of the Civil List Bill
Earl Grey's dispatch was forwarded to Sir John Harvey,
then the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia. The Civil
List Act, Lord Durham's report and Grey's dispatch all
came about in the decade 1837-47, and they are the three
principal documents embodying the principle of respon-
sible government. A brief synopsis of the two former
has been given. The Grey dispatch is a most significant
state paper, and no student of Canadian public affairs
can afford to pass it by. It is therein freely recognized
that the governor of a province in administering its
affairs should have the advice and assistance of those
who could command the confidence of the legislature and
more especially of that branch which directly represents
the people. A sharp distinction was made between
"political officers," that is, as we would term them, now,
the members of the cabinet, who would change with
changing governments after popular elections and other
public servants whose tenure of office should be held
independently of party changes. Anything like the spoils
system was unsparingly condemned. "There is," writes
the Colonial Secretary, "scarcely any part of the system

[ 64 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

of government in this country (England) whicli I con-
sider of greater value than that, which though not en-
forced by written laws, but deriving its authority from
usage and public opinion, makes the tenure of the great
majority of officers in the public service to depend on
good behaviour." After a learned and thorough analysis
of the entire situation the conclusion is reached and ex-
pressed that the "peculiar circumstances of Nova Scotia
piesent no insuperable obstacle to the immediate adoption
of that system of parliamentary government which has
long prevailed in. the mother country, and which seems
a necessary part of representative institutions in a certain
stage of their progress." Throughout the dispatch, the
term responsible government is used as having a well
recognized and accepted meaning. It is a matter of in-
terest that in the whole of Durham's long report the
term is never mentioned, a fact that the author rather
naively recalls when he addressed the British Parliament
on the subject. Grey's dispatch was adopted by the New
Brunswick Legislature the following year.

I 6^ 1

CHAPTER VIII.

Attacks on the Durham Report — Union of Upper and

Lower Canada.

nORD Durham's report created a sensation in the
political world. The attack on it was bitter and
came from many sides, while at first, at all
events, whole hearted support was withheld. Sir Francis
Head was then in England. His fulminations agaiiist
the recommendations contained in the report carried quite
a weight in conservative circles, none the less that Head
was a skilful writer and a master in the art of vitupera-
tion. The Family Compact men in the Canadas on the
one hand, and the French Canadians on the other opposed
the union, but from different motives. The English
extremists objected to the restoration of representative
government to the French, while the French opposed the
proposition because their representative government
would be shadow without the substance — an aggravating
nullity.

Lord Haliburton, the celebrated author of Sam Slick,
well known and highly regarded in England, lifted his
voice against the union, and made the astounding asser-
tion on the public platform that an advocate of the ballot
box and extended suffrage was not the man to govern a
colony. Lower Canada, he said, had not been used to
representative government, and if under French control
would have not thought of asking for it. The Albion, a
paper of strong British tendencies, and published in New
York, with a large circulation in the British colonies,
pronounced the report replete of dangerous doctrines, and
in dealing with the suggestion that the other colonies
might in time come into the union, expressed the hope
that they would do nothing of the kind. "Lord Durham
has, we fear, sown the seeds of discord," this journal
adds. It refers caustically to the "chimera of responsible
government," and deeply regrets that many loyal and
well disposed persons have swallowed the "pernicious

[ 66 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

delusion." Further it is asked how a governor can,
possibly, be responsible to his sovereign and at the same
time to the people of the colony.

In the British Parliament the situation of the Canadas
was the subject of many debates. Charles Buller com-
plained of the dillydallying on the part of the govern-
ment in giving effect to the recommendations in the
report, and that the big question of the Canadas is
shelved, while "some petty matter of municipal import-
ance occupies the time of Parliament." "Hanging
people," he adds, "is not likely to produce conciliation,"
an unmistakable reference to the execution of Lount and
Matthews. Sir Robert Peel could not see that the pros-
pect was at all enticing and thought the conditions in the
Canadas were as bad as they had been five years before.
Durham's own speech on his own report was a model of
moderation and sound reasoning. He did not advocate
hurry in the matter, but deprecated unnecessary delay.
If they gave the Canadian people all the freedom which
they themselves enjoyed as to representative institutions,
if they gave them the power to regulate their own affairs,
to vote money and refuse supplies, and denied them the
results of that freedom, it was impossible to imagine that
there would be satisfaction in the colony. Without that,
there would be no peace, and he adds that it would be
better to give up the colony altogether if that could not
be done.

Lord John Russell was not prepared to lay down the
principle — a new principle for the government of colonies
— that we ought to subject the Executive there to the
same restrictions as prevailed in England. The Duke of
Wellington took a hand in the debate. He would not
oppose the bill, when the Upper Canadian Legislature
had accepted the principle. Very naturally the famous
general was insistent on the establishment of the Queen's
authority by force if necessary, and he again paid a
tribute of respect to the volunteers and militia of Canada
for their services during the late rebellion. The eloquent

[ 67 J

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

O'Connell joined his powerful voice to those who advo-
cated the adoption of the report. He considered the report
on the whole, admirable, but regretted to find a recom-
mendation to the effect that the political privileges of the
French Canadians should be annihilated. Was this the
way to conciliate them? The way to deal with Canada
was to deal generously. Lower Canada could not be
conciliated by giving "superiority to a race, that in every-
thing but education was inferior to the French Cana-
dian."

In the meantime the Upper Canada Assembly had not
been idle. The representative principle had been taken
away from Lower Canada after the rebellion. Upper
Canada did not extend the olive branch very far towards
their French Canadian brethren. In a set of resolutions
concerning the union it is, among other things sug-
gested that a portion of the lower province, east of the
Madawaska and south of the St. Lawrence, covering the
counties of Gaspe, Bonaventure, and Rimouski be
detached from Lower Canada and annexed to New
Brunswick. New Brunswick does not appear to have
made any particular demand for this territory, and it
may be taken for granted that Upper Canada was quite
as considerate then, as it is today of its own particular
interest. Of course, only the English language was to be
tolerated on the floors of the legislature, and while Upper
Canada was to have its full quota of representatives.
Lower Canada was to be confined to the arbitrary number
of fifty. The permanent capital was to be in Upper
Canada. During the debates on these resolutions, some
interesting views were expressed as to the future govern-
ment of the British American colonies. For instance,
Mr. Hagerman, the Attorney-General, expressed ap-
proval of such legislation as would incorporate the
colonies into a kingdom, along with Scotland and
Ireland, governed by a viceroy, and the doing away
altogether with local legislatures, and having instead
representation in the Imperial Parliament.

[ 68 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

Sir John Colborne, the Governor of Upper Canada,
a high minded gentleman and a soldier of repute, was
all for the loyal men and was in no way favourable to
concessions to the rebels. These are but a few indications
of hostility to the report. It is well known that when
Durham arrived at Plymouth official welcome was denied
him, although the municipal authorities presented him
with flattering addresses. Lady Durham showed a proper
spirit, when, on noticing the affront paid to her husband,
she promptly resigned her position at Court. There have
been few more striking instances of the incapacity of one
generation to pass mature judgment on the outstanding
acts of the public men of its period. It is true, that in
time the recommendation of the report was adopted, but
it was with the utmost misgivings even amongst many of
those who voted for it, while howls of disapproval met
each other crossing the ocean.

To Poulett Thompson was allotted the task of secur-
ing the acquiescence of the Canadas in the act uniting
the two provinces. The task was not one to the liking of
a statesman, who might fancy and prefer the easy walks
of official life. Thompson seems to have been a happy
selection. Durham had accomplished the heavier work,
which perhaps had much to do with his early death. In
connection with him one recalls Roosevelt's words, that
a statesman — that is a real statesman — must be ready to
sacrifice, at crucial times, his present, and even his future
political life for his country, just as the soldier must be
ready to give up his physical life.

Mr. Thompson's reception was, to say the least of it,
not cordial. In high Canadian circles, it was feared that
he was tainted with the doctrines of that "prescious
document," the Durham report. When he reached
Toronto, the centre of articulate loyalty, then as now,
he was met with an address from the corporation, in
which reference was made to the proposed union which,
"if it did not predicate the ascendancy of the loyal part
of the inhabitants, or which should ever give those who

[ 69 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

from education, habits and prejudices are aliens, and
more especially those who had been connected with open
rebellion or treasonable conspiracy against the govern-
ment, the same rights and privileges as the loyal British
population, would be fatal to the connection of this
province with the parent state."

To this address the new governor made a dignified and
a firm reply. He said that the reunion of the provinces
was recommended by Her Majesty's government, from
a deep conviction that it would cement the connection
between the colonies and the parent state, which it was
the firm determination of Her Majesty's government to
maintain inviolate, and which to be of permanent advan-
tage, must be founded upon the principle of equal justice
to all Her Majesty's subjects. But even this quite
apparent snub from official headquarters failed to quiet
the agitation, and there was much loud talk about the
injustice and the unwisdom of the proposed union and of
the "profound absurdity" of so called responsible gov-
ernment.

The two provinces became united in name, at all
events. It was certainly not a marriage of love, but
rather one of convenience urged and even hastened, by a
parent, tired to death with constant squabbles and pulls
at a mother's apron strings. Upper Canada, as was to be
expected, got the best of the bargain. The lesser popu-
lation was there, but the representation in the united
legislature was equal. Upper Canada did not at that
time urge very vehemently, the principle of representa-
tion by population, which became its popular battle cry,
when its population became much larger. The selection
of a capital was left to the governor and Kingston was
the choice. After awhile Montreal became the capital,
but in time of great political excitement, some of the
violent partizans burned down the Parliament buildings.
Another choice had to be made and the decision to hold
alternate parliaments at Quebec and Toronto every four
years was made. English was the official language,
although as time passed permission to use French in

[ 70 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

debates was granted. The United province assumed the
debt of Upper Canada which at that time had attained to
alarming dimensions as debts went in those days. Quebec
had very little to say as to its fate. Since the rebellion it
had been governed by a council with an English-speaking
majority. The English members of the council voted
solemnly for the union and the French members voted as
solemnly against it and thus it carried.

All in all the union of the two Canadas has worked
well for the Dominion at large. It threw the two people
together, and there is nothing like friendly intercourse to
brush away misunderstandings.

English and French public men, who would have not
met each other otherwise, met and discussed matters of
public interest and, of course, such discussion was fruit-
ful of good. It is true that among the bigoted, hot-
headed and ignorant of both tongues differences led to
conflicts and blows. But it is equally true that among the
tolerant, cool-headed and thoughtful differences led to
conferences, understanding and compromise.

John A. Macdonald, who as a lad had shouldered his
musket, a volunteer in the loyalist army of Allan
MacNabb, formed a personal and political friendship
with George E. Cartier, who as a hot rebel had taken
up arms under Papineau, which lasted through the trying
days of Confederation and only closed with the death of
Cartier. George Brown, the founder of the Toronto
Globe, and the redoubtable voice of Upper Canada
puritanism, and Anglo-Saxon ascendancy, became the
intimate friend and associate of Aime Dorion, who per-
haps as much as any public man of the day, represented
the French Canadian spirit of the lower province. As
time passed certain English-speaking candidates were
elected from Quebec constituencies and French-speaking
candidates from ridings in Upper Canada. Lafontaine,
the one time French Canadian reformer, found a seat in
one of the Haldimands, while Robert Baldwin, best of
all the Upper Canada reformers, represented during one
parliament a constituency in T,ower Canada.

L 'I J

CHAPTER IX.

Canada Under Union — -Legislative Council — Strife Over
the Capital and Representation by Population —
Steps Towards Confederation.

\^^HE quarter of a century or so, in which the two
1^ ) Canadas worked or tried to work in harness to-
gether, was an important epoch, not only in the
Canadas but in the world's history. It was the opening
and developing of the steam travel age. Steamships were
just proving their utility and railways were in course of
construction. All in all, the invention of steam locomo-
tion in travel is the most significant of inventions, and
to this day nothing has been found to supplant the
steamship and the steam railway trains.

With this development prosperity dawned on the
British North American provinces and the Canadas were,
of course, the banner colonies from a material standpoint.
Factories started and business generally prospered. The
habitant in Lower Canada, or Canada east, followed the
even tenor of his ways, producing children and crops and
staying to the third and fourth generation on the land of
his fathers. Canada west experienced a wonderful
stream of immigration, almost entirely from the British
Isles, and it was not a great while before the population
of the western province equalled and then excelled that
of the eastern. Then, arose a demand for representation
by population, which continued to be more and more
insistent, and only died out with the Confederation pact.

Towards the middle period of the union of the
Canadas a reciprocity treaty was arranged with the
United States, in which all the other British colonies
participated and under which the natural products of
soil, forest and sea were interchanged free of duty. This
was undoubtedly of great benefit to the provinces, which
found the larger market of the New England and New
York states a great advantage.

[ 72 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

A constitutional change worthy of more note than most
local historians have given it, was made, after the experi-
ment of union had been under way ten years or so. At
the time of the union, the legislative council was made
nominative. It would seem that it became to be a very
useless body of men, unheedful of their duties, many of
them absent from their seats, and most of them incom-
petent and indifferent.

The very fact that the governor, Lord Elgin, regarded
the situation so critical as to call for a radical change in
the formation of the council, shows what sort of a
legislative body it had become. It was finally decided to
change the upper chamber from a nominative to an
elective house, and the necessary legislation was secured
from the Home Government, without much difficulty.
The bill carried in the Legislative Assembly of the
Canadas with an overwhelming majority, only four
members of a House of eighty registering themselves
against the proposed change. The new council was to
consist of forty-eight members elected from certain
assigned large districts, and each member was elected for
eight years. There was an arrangement under which one-
fourth of the members of the council went to the people
every two years, and thus touch was had with the elec-
torate at certain fixed periods, a procedure based on the
American constitution. The old appointed members were
allowed to retain their seats during their lives. When the
question of Confederation arose and seemed to take
practical shape, the mode of selecting the members of the
Senate, was most important and the debates in the
Canadian assembly and council are to be read with
interest. The idea that the elective body was found
unsatisfactory does not at all appear to be borne out by
the tone of the debates. On the contrary, it was working
well, and there is nothing to indicate that the system
would have been changed had Confederation not been
brought about. At that time it must be remembered that
Prince Edward Island had an elective upper house, so
that the Canadas were not alone in this regard.

[ 73 ] ._^ .

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

It is not necessary to enter at length into detail of

the debate on this very important question, but a short

reference to some of the remarks may not be unedifying.

Mr. Reesor was one of the members strongly opposed to

the nominative principle, and the words read in light of

the history of the Canadian Senate, were not idle

prophecy. In the first place he considered that the oftener

any public man was brought in touch with the people to

find out their wishes, the better. Continuing, —

' We know that the effect will be to find a place in this

' House for the men distinguished for the aid they have

' given to certain men and parties, and not as a reward

' for true merit or legislative ability. The government

' which appoints a man, as long as it remains in power,

' will look for and receive his cordial support, but let it

' be defeated and a ministry formed out of the opposite

' party and there will be a danger of a deadlock between

' the two branches of the legislature."

Edward Blake said that he had always been in favour
of the elective principle in the constitution of the
legislative council. Mr. Hector Langevin, on the con-
trary, declared that the people of Quebec were tired of
the elective council. Significant were the utterances of
(Sir) John A. Macdonald, not only because of what is
contained in them, but coming from the source they did,
for Mr. Macdonald, at that time, may have been said to
represent the Conservative and even the Family Compact
party. "The arguments," he said, "for an elective
" council are numerous and strong, and I do say, as one
" of an administration responsible for the introducing of
" the elective principle, that I hold this principle has not
" been a failure in Canada, but there were causes why it
" did not succeed as well as could be expected."

So strongly was Mr. A. A. Dorion, a very prominent
Lower Canadian opposed to the adoption of the nomina-
tive principle in the second chamber of the new Dominion
Parliament, that he withheld his support from the whole
scheme of Confederation, an attitude that which would

[ 74 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

not indicate that all of Quebec was of Mr. Langevin's
opinion. For upwards of ten years the elective council
of Canada functioned, on the whole, to the satisfaction of
the people. It is said that the politicians, or some of
them, did not favour the change, as it kept them too
constantly on the qui vive, an election of some sort being
bound to take place every two years.

There was no pronounced demand from Lower Canada
for a return to the nominative principle, although Mr. H.
Langevin (Sir Hector), who took an active part in the
bringing about of Confederation, probably voiced his
own views at the Quebec Conference. When Confedera-
tion did come about and it was found that the Senate was
to be a nominated body, it was said, on the one hand that
the Maritime Provinces insisted on that form of the
constitution, and this in spite of the example to the con-
trary of Prince Edward Island, and on the other hand
that Quebec was the province which demanded a return
to the old system. It is likely that the Imperial Govern-
ment urged the nominative principle for the new
Confederation. It is also more than likely that the anti-
American sentiment, which set in after the Civil War
and the Fenian incursions, together with the abrogation
of the reciprocity by the United States, had something to
do with it. As a result Canada to-day, certainly has a
second chamber, in its constitution, unique among
countries with representative institutions, the most auto-
cratic of any that we read or hear of, which can, if it
choose, apparently without let or hindrance, effectively
defeat the wishes of the branch of Parliament elected by
the people. Fortunately the good sense of its members
has hitherto, prevented the Senate from playing an alto-
gether too pronounced party game. In Quebec, where
the senators are assigned certain districts, the system
works better and might well be followed in the other
provinces.

The two chambers had their clashes, but when they
did, the Council could not be reproached with the taunt

[ 75 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

that it was unrepresentative, A notable instance of a
difference was in connection with the selection of a
permanent capital. The alternative system between
Toronto and Quebec was most inconvenient and a
clumsy arrangement, altogether, one which everyone
could see was but a makeshift. A resolution passed by
the Assembly constituting Quebec the permanent capital
after 1859 was promptly made ineffective, by the action
of the Council in withholding its assent to the necessary
supply for money voted for the purpose of the erection
of suitable parliament buildings.

It has been said that deadlock was the parent of
Confederation. To a limited extent this may be true,
but it is not altogether true. The idea of Confederation
had been in the minds of the leading men of the colonies
ever since the days of the American revolution. Howe
and even McKenzie had spoken or written in support of
the idea. That matters had arrived at a deadlock in the
two provinces is a fact, but such difficulties arise in all
countries at certain stages, and they don't by any means
always lead to an alteration in the constitution. The
deadlock in this case was loosened and open to some sort
of solution when a coalition government was formed.
George Brown, the leading reformer and a man of great
ability and energy, whose speeches during the Confedera-
tion tours are masterly efforts, denied positively that the
Canadians were advocating Confederation as the only
means of a solution of their difficulties. His words in
this regard are so positive that they are worth giving.
Speaking at Halifax, Mr. Brown said he did not regard
a Confederation of the whole provinces as "any remedy
for our present wrongs," and continued by saying he had
joined the government of Cartier and "we have agreed
' on a principle of settlement agreeable to a large
' majority of the representatives in Parliament and I am
' persuaded of the great mass of our people in both sec-
' tions of the province. We are pledged as a government
' to place before Parliament at its next session a bill

[ 76 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

giving effect to the conditions of our pact, and should
the union of the whole provinces not be proceeded with,
our Canadian Reform Bill will go on and our
grievances be redressed. You will therefore perceive
that we have not come to seek relief from our troubles,
for a remedy of our grievances is already agreed upon,
and come what may, to the larger scheme now before
us, the smaller scheme will certainly be accomplished."
There were many long and acrimonious debates over
the question of the capital. It was agreed that the choice
should be left to the Queen, who selected Ottawa, but in
spite of Her Majesty's decision, an amendment passed
the Assembly later that Ottawa was not a suitable place.
Governments arose and fell on this issue, but Ottawa
finally won out by a narrow majority.

Another source of dissension was the much vexed
question of representation by population, upon which
the members from Upper Canada now strenuously
insisted, with their very much greater population, while
opposition to the change was not unreasonably found in
the Lower Canada members, who pointed out that when
their province at the time of the union, was largely the
most populous, it was agreed that the representation
from each should be equal. Governments continued to
rise and to fall with amazing rapidity. One, the Brown-
Dorion government, only existed six days. Then, at last,
it dawned on the minds of the leaders of the parties,
French and English, Conservative and Refonn, that
something must be done to save the situation from chaos.
There was a suggestion that certain measures, before
they were crystallized into law, should pass with a
majority from each section of the united province, but
that was soon seen to be an unworkable idea. It was
proposed that the present union should be dissolved, and
a federal union substituted, with the object of finally
incorporating all the provinces in its folds. And then
the vision of Confederation shone forth. When it became
known that the people down by the sea were on the verge

[ 77 j

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

of adopting a system of Maritime Union, the idea at once
seized the leaders of both parties, that the time was
opportune to make advances with the view of the adoption
of the larger scheme. Macdonald and Brown and Cartier
and Dorion had with many other leaders met in con-
ference, with a view to saving the situation, even at the
expense of coalition, and a government embracing
leaders from the opposing parties was formed.

[ 78 ]

CHAPTER X.

Confederation — Intercolonial Railway — New Brunswick
Elections — Inclusion of Northwest and British
Columbia.

CRINCE Edward Island, known for a long time
after its discovery as the Island of St. John,
is one of the most beautiful spots on the North
American continent. Agriculturally it is a veritable
garden. Its history, if not exciting, is at least interest-
ing. French Acadians, Scotch, English and Irish were
among its early settlers. The progress of this favoured
isle was set back and protracted by a system of absentee
landlordism, which placed its baneful foot on its shores
and arrested development, as it always arrests develop-
ment, where its blighting and deadly influence exists.
"Services to the Crown" led to the granting of vast tracts
of land to favoured, influential and, generally speaking,
utterly selfish individuals, whose loyalty as loud mouthed
as shallow, was measured by the standard of pounds,
shillings and pence. Efforts made again and again to
throw off this octopus failed, largely because the
Imperial authorities seem to have been obsessed with the
idea that of all things sacred in this world, nothing is
quite so sacred as vested rights, particularly the vested
rights of the wealthy and strong. Confederation at least
conferred on the island one immeasurable benefit. It did
away with this iniquitous land policy of landlordism.
When the delegates from the upper provinces appeared
at the conference where the Maritime parliamentarians
were assembled, they were accorded a hearty welcome,
and as if by general consent the smaller project dropped
out of consideration and the larger and more attractive
scheme came to the front.

The delegates met in Charlottetown in September,
eighteen hundred and sixty-four. They continued on
their tour taking in the cities of Halifax, Saint John and
Fredericton in the lower provinces, Quebec and Montreal

[ /9 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

in Lower Canada, and Toronto and other centres in
Upper Canada. Of course the longest stay was in Quebec,
where the now celebrated Confederation resolutions were
promulgated and adopted. It was well on to the end of
November when the delegates separated and returned to
their several homes, with the difficult task ahead of
persuading the people at large that the union of these
seemingly incongruous colonies was in their interests.

In a way Confederation came with a rush. The people
of the provinces were committed to it before they were
quite aware of what it meant. The Charlottetown con-
vention was in the autumn of 1864, and in the spring
of 1867, the British North America Act received the
assent of the Imperial legislature. There was no appeal
to the people of the provinces interested except in the
Province of New Brunswick and in the Colony of
Newfoundland, New Brunswick went overwhelmingly
against the scheme, but within less than two years made
a complete turnabout and voted as strongly for as it
previously voted against the union. Newfoundland
expressed an opinion utterly opposed to the Confedera-
tion, and has never since changed its mind.

The Canadian delegates to the Charlottetown conven-
tion seem to have carried all before them. Not that the
Maritime delegates were indifferent, but they had come
together with the view of Maritime union. The larger
scheme, however, appealed to their imagination, as it
must have appealed to the imagination of any one with
anything of the vision of a statesman. The difficulties
of carrying it to fruition were many, and it is quite
apparent that each province represented that, in entering
into the union, it was sacrificing material advantage for
the good of the whole country and in the interests of a
closer bond of Imperial union. The tour which the
delegates, after the meeting in Charlottetown, made was
such as to lead them to believe that the people at large,
the more they realized the importance of the proposed
scheme, the more they were imbued with the spirit that in

[ 80 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

British North America there was the possibility of a
great country, which under a united rule and direction,
would become one of the leading nations of the con-
tinent, and indeed of the world. The speeches made were
of a high order, and as to afford inspiration to the
audiences which listened to them. To be sure the burning
eloquence of Howe was missing, but the forceful, if
somewhat exaggerated language of Dr. Tupper was a
mighty contribution in carrying out the scheme.

As before pointed out, George Brown was one of the
most convincing speakers, and he appears to have not
been at all averse to speaking on any and every occasion,
and at length. John A. Macdonald, the real father of
Confederation, made few speeches, but there was solid
meat in everything that fell from his lips. All through-
out his long and honourable career, this foremost
Canadian statesmen let others do most of the talking
while he did the thinking, the planning, and the execut-
ing. He did not even seem to mind when others forgot
the credit which was his own due. He led many men by
leading them to believe that they were much greater than
he. His insight into human nature was marvellous.
D'Arcy McGee, the early-time Irish rebel, was one of
the delegates, and his eloquence and wit carried all before
it. In Charlottetown, one of the Island politicians, with
true insular pride, was talking about the greatness of his
own province, when McGee burst out : "Don't you be too
boastful of your little island. Don't let us hear so much
about it, or, we will send down a little tug-boat and draw
you up into one of our lakes, where we will leave you to
take care of yourselves." And the Islander was shrewd
enough to remark that perhaps that would not be too bad
a fate.

The period was a perilous one in the history of the
continent. The American republic was involved in a
civil war, which, no matter who won out, promised
disturbance for some time to come and uneasiness in all
parts of North America. True, Gettysburg had been

[ 81 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

fought, Grant was displaying the great qualities of a
military leader, but the South was fighting a stubborn
battle. The need of a common united action amongst the
British colonies was felt, if British power and prestige
was to still find place in America. Thus in reading an
account of the proceedings on this federation tour, one
is struck by the note of military necessity, which sounded
in the arguments for the Confederation. It was not known
what spirit of conquest might arise in the country to the
south, and there was a strong feeling that the British
provinces should come together and put themselves in a
position, where, if need arose, a successful defence might
be made.

A party in England, which if not numerous was at
least quite influential, propounded the doctrine that
colonies having attained to the importance of the Amer-
ican provinces, should assume independence. Later on
this group came to be known as little Englanders. T'me
alone will show whether they were wise prophets. That
the views of these doctrinaires, as they were somewhat
contemptuously termed by those who did not agree with
them, were well known in Canada, is plain, for more than
once more than one of the delegates dealt with the
arguments adduced by them. To the contention that they
were a source of danger to the motherland, John A.
Macdonald spoke of the many times in which the
colonists found themselves at war or in danger of war,
when their immediate interests were in no way affected,
such as the Trent affair, the Oregon boundary matter
and other occasions. Yet the men of the colonies were
ready and willing with their offers of the utmost
assistance in men and money. George Brown, in Toronto,
reminded his listeners of the well accepted doctrine that
a parent country, which induced its subjects to go to far
away colonies was bound to afford them all reasonable
protection, until such times they were able to look after
themselves. That, he said, was in the nature of a contract.
It might be said in reply to that that when the colony

[ 82 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

became practically independent, made its own customs
tariff, and collected and spent its own revenue, had in
fact as well as in name, responsible government, there
might be a plea advanced that the contract was rescinded.
English statesmen, then as since, were always on pins
and needles, lest the hot-heads, in the colonies, should
lead them into a position that meant hostilities with the
United States, and perhaps did not sufficiently bear in
mind that, as far as blame was to be borne for the War
of 1812, Canada and the other American provinces were
blameless.

However, during the tour of the Confederation form-
ing statesmen, there was ample evidence that not only
was Britain interested in and favourable to a union of
the provinces, but that, if the provinces formed a sound,
practical and effective union, in case of hostilities from
outside causes, the whole power and force of the mother-
land would be found at its back. In fact there was a
good deal of talk of armies and navies and war, and
elderly gentlemen spoke of how ready and willing they
were that younger gentlemen should shed their blood and
the blood of the elderly gentlemen's enemies, if any
daring enemy ventured to tread on their toes. Still this
was not unreasonable talk, for south of the boundary
line was a kindred nation involved in one of the most
bloody and terrible wars of history, and the atmosphere
was thick with the smoke of battle. The glorious victory
of this or that general was featured rather than the
imspeakable sorrow and anguish of a strife in which,
literally speaking, fathers, sons and brothers fought in
opposite camps, while mothers and wives and sisters
passed daily through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
The military situation was one of the paramount
reasons, but by no means the only one for the proposed
Confederation. There was the commercial aspect to be
considered. At the time when the delegates were
deliberating, as has been said, a treaty of reciprocity in
natural products was in force between the States and the

[ 83 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

provinces. There can be no manner of doubt that under
this treaty, the inhabitants of the British provinces
flourished, and this was particularly the case in the
colonies on the seaboard. Nor did the Civil War lessen
the prosperity. On the contrary, the necessities of the
southern neighbour, the demand for all sorts of com-
modities, and the transference of such a host of able-
bodied men from the pursuit of agricultural and manu-
facturing labour, to the purpose of waging war, all made
for increased prosperity for the provinces. Everything
that could be raised on the land and in the factory was
in demand at good prices. Whether the fathers of
Confederation thought that the reciprocity treaty was
likely to be abrogated, or whether they thought it would
be in the interests of the provinces that it should be, is
not easy to say. The fact is that the treaty was abrogated
and that, by the United States, shortly before the
accomplishment of Confederation. Any change of that
kind causes industrial disturbance, and the disturbance is
generally, in the nature of things, more deeply felt by
the smaller than by the larger country. When the
reciprocity pact ended, it was undoubtedly the hope of the
promoters of Confederation that a free intercourse of
commodities between the provinces would in some
measure, at all events, take the place of the open United
States market.

Then there was another motive, which may be termed
the national reason. There was not much scope for
political ambition of the worthy kind, in the old provin-
cial life. To be premier of Upper Canada, or Lower
Canada, or of Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, was an
honourable position, but not a very high pinnacle of the
political temple, or, if a high pinnacle, of a very small
political temple.

If, as has been said, the leading Upper Canadians
made an impression on the Maritime delegates, the
converse was also true, for Dr. Tupper and Mr. Tilley
especially, were at once recognized as statesmen of the

[ 84 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

first order. These two leaders, the one from Nova Scotia
and the other from New Brunswick, were utterly unalike
yet each in his way impressive, Tupper was bold and
assertive, a sort of Boanerges or son of thunder, apt to
carry an audience by the force of his personality. Tilley
was mild, persuasive, logical, convincing and yet firm,
with good reasoning powers. In time to come Macdonald,
Tupper and Tilley became closely associated in an
important stage in the history of Canada and took the
lead in the councils of the country. An instance of
Tupper's forcefulness was given at a banquet given
to the delegates in Quebec. When the chairman was
somewhat cautious and expressed the view that whatever
came about, there would at least be free trade between
the provinces, the energetic Nova Scotian rebuked him
for his undue caution, and would hear of nothing but a
political and federal union. I'illey pointed out the great
inconvenience of a lot of differing tariffs between the
provinces. He had been one of the leading spirits in the
promotion of Maritime Union, and one can see that he
would have been pleased had this smaller scheme been
carried out before the larger. But a prediction made by
Mr. Tilley to the effect that the people in the Maritime
Provinces, being a "manufacturing people" to a large
extent, would to the whole of British America occupy a
similar place that Massachusetts does to the United
States, has most assuredly not been verified. Instead of
the Maritime Provinces ca[)turing the Upper Provinces
as a market for their manufactures, the Upper Provinces
have captured the Maritime Provinces.

The Intercolonial Railway was a most important link
in the scheme, a condition precedent on the part of the
lower provinces for acceptance of the union. And the
Upper Canadian delegates while in Nova Scotia and
New Brunswick, endorsed this proposition and prophesied
wonderful advances in commercial prosperity on account
of its construction. Halifax would become one of the
great emporiums of the world, when all the great

f 8^ ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

resources of the West come over the great railways of
Canada to the bosom of "this harbour." "I do not
" hesitate to say," said Mr. Macdonald, "with respect to
" the Intercolonial Railway that it is understood by the
" people of Canada that it can only be built as a means
" of political union of the colonies. It cannot be denied
'■ that the railway as a commercial enterprise would be
" of comparatively little commercial advantage to the
" people of Canada. While we have the St. Lawrence
" in summer and the American ports in time of peace, we
" have all that is requisite for our purposes. In the case
" of union this railway must be built as a national work
" and Canada will cheerfully contribute to the expense
" of making that important link, without which no
" political connection can be complete." George Brown
had for some time opposed the construction of this line,
as a national work, but at a large meeting in Toronto he
boldly announced that he was willing to accept it as a
condition demanded by the lower provinces, and that he
was now heartily in favour of its construction.

With Confederation accomplished the location of the
Intercolonial Railway was a matter of bitter controversy
in the Province of New Brunswick. Everything pointed
to what is known as the Saint John Valley route, as the
shortest, the most practicable from an engineering stand-
point and the most economically to be built. Besides all
this it would pass through the oldest settled and the most
fertile section of country in the whole province — a section
largely peopled by the Loyalists, who naturally selected
the pick of the lands when they came. One of the first
projected railways in British America from St. Andrews
on the Passamaquoddy Bay to the City of Quebec, had
been under consideration thirty years before Confedera-
tion. The controversy over the Aroostook Valley country
and the consequent award of a large part of it to the
United States, had a good deal, no doubt, to do with the
inability of the promoters of the road to finance it. Had
that been possible of accomplishment, there would have

[ 86 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

been short connection with the New Brunswick ports, and
much of the trade now passing through Portland and
Boston would have gone through St. Andrews and
Saint John. It was hoped by the people of the central
counties that the new I. C. R. would make up for the
failure of the earlier scheme. But the present route — the
North Shore, was adopted. Peter Mitchell was the
premier of the last before Confederation government in
Fredericton. A man of strong and persistent personality,
he made his opinions felt in support of the North Shore.
He was backed up by Major Robinson, an engineer of
some note, and there was also brought to bear on the
question the proximity of the Saint John Valley route to
the United States border, which would make a railway
constructed there easier of seizure in the case of war —
which, was not, as now, regarded as an absurd impossi-
bility.

To return to the travelling Confederation delegates,
perhaps Mr. A. T. Gait was drawing rather heavily on
the credulity of his audience, when in support of
George Brown's contention that Confederation or not,
the differences of the Canadas would be settled, Mr. Gait
said, not only that the Canadas had grown to a position
of importance "such as never could have been hoped for
in a disunited state," but also, "that since union we have
been in harmony one with another." One would not be
sur[)rised to hear that some of the Maritime delegates
raised their eyebrows, and that some of them indulged in
a quiet smile over this naive utterance.

Among those who took part in at least one of the
meetings was Mr. James Ross, who hailed and registered
from Red River. Red River did not mean much to the
ordinary British American at the time. It was supposed
to be a desolate land even more Arctic than the northern-
most portions of New Brunswick or Quebec. Few people
had any idea of the vast possibilities of the great West.
Where the populous City of Winnipeg now stands there
was a little settlement called Fort Garry. Some people in

[ «' J

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

the East had heard of Lord Selkirk's settlers, and of the
terrible experiences they had undergone. The Hudson's
Bay Company was in control of the whole country, and
the Hudson's Bay Company, loyal to its own, was not in
business for the sake of the health only of the successors
and assigns of the original noble band, who induced the
gallant monarch, Charles the Second, to hand over to
them in perpetuity, all the land in British North America
from the Great Lakes, practically to the Rocky Moun-
tains. There were the faithful few who had the great
vision of a Dominion extending from sea to sea and who
foresaw new and rich provinces carved out of this vast
prairie land, where thousands of farmers would have
homes and millions of bushels of grain would be pro-
duced. But the sceptics were largely in the majority,
Mr. Ross was one of the enthusiasts, an absurd optimist
— he would probably have been called at that time.

His words are well worth preservation: — "There is a
country," he said, "where the persecuted population of
European countries may resort and find comfortable
homes. There are one hundred millions of square miles
fit for settlement, and I wish this fact to go far and wide
as authentic and reliable."

Reference has been made to the elections on the
Confederation issue in the Province of New Brunswick,
and so unique was the situation and so quick the change
in public sentiment, and so fateful the issue to the future
of the Dominion that a more extended review of the case
is justified. The first election in March, 1865, was most
disastrous and disheartening to the Confederates, led by
Mr. Tilley, and most satisfying to those who for one
reason or another opposed the proposed union. Mr. Tilley
and all his cabinet, but one, suffered defeat. Only three
counties, Carleton, Restigouche and Albert, returned
candidates pledged to Confederation. It appeared as far
as New Brunswick would indicate that the whole project
was condemned. But the new government, led by
Mr. Albert J. Smith, soon found itself in difficulties.

[ 88 ]

o

r-
o

■o

XI

o

<

z
o
m

CD

r—

z
p

-n
70
m
O
m

O

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

Mr. Smith, himself, was a strong and unquestioned
opponent of the whole scheme of Confederation, as was
one at least of his colleagues in the government, Mr. T.
W. Anglin. But other members of the cabinet and
supporters in the House were only opposed to some of
the terms in the Quebec outline and not to the general
idea of union. Furthermore, in the September, after the
March election, a by-election to fill the vacancy caused
by the appointment of Mr. John C. Allen, the attorney-
general, to the bench, resulted in the triumphant return
of the Confederation candidate, Mr. Charles Fisher, who
was not only a pronounced Confederate, but one of the
originators of the Quebec scheme. He was attorney-
general in Mr. Tilley's government and had been badly
beaten in the March elections. This by-election was most
significant, and the government began to see that public
opinion, becoming more educated to the meaning of
union, was changing. Perhaps this York County by-
election was the most important by-election ever held in
Canada.

The Legislature did not meet in Session until the
following March. They found the situation then changed,
and, to the amazement of many, the Speech from the
Throne contained a favourable reference to a union of
the provinces. The governor had been active, particularly
so after a visit to England, and he brought word that the
Imperial Government and the Queen herself, favoured
Confederation. Presently the Legislative Council, while
the Assembly was debating the address, passed a resolu-
tion in favour of union, and the governor in his reply
expressed similar sentiments. Moreover, it was found
that certain members of the government and supporters
of it were now favourable to the scheme. The result was
that Mr. Smith handed in his resignation to the governor,
who dissolved the House and called on Peter Mitchell to
form a government, in which Mr. Tilley was provincial
secretary. Mr. Wilmot, who had been in the anti-confed-
erate cabinet, accepted a place in the new government
pledged to Confederation.

[ 89 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

The elections were held in May and June and the
result was the triumphant return of the Mitchell Con-
federate government, by as large a majority as that by
which the previous one had been defeated. The popular
majority was shown to be very large. Thus, New
Brunswick set its seal to Confederation. Before passing
from this phase of the question, reference must be made
to a few stirring incidents in the debates before the
second election. It was evident that there had been some
unfavourable comment by Upper Canadian speakers and
writers on the result of the first election, for Mr.
Hatheway, a member of the government, made the
rather biting retort, that "we have never burned our
province building or professed anything but respect for
the Queen's representative." Some Upper Canadian
statesmen, in considerable prominence might be led by
this retort to call to mind not too pleasantly, Lord Elgin,
a former governor general, and the blazing Parliament
buildings in Montreal.

Among the few favouring Confederation who found a
seat was Charles Connell, of Carleton. He had been
Postmaster General in an earlier government and when
the decimal system was introduced he was entrusted with
the securing of the dies for the new stamps. When the
stamps were issued, what was the surprise of everybody
and the indignation of a great many to find that instead
of the Queen's head, the head of the Postmaster General
appeared on the five cent issue. There was a great
hullabaloo. Mr. Connell resigned his position in the
government. He did not remain out of public life, but
on the contrary was endorsed by the electors on the
occasion of both Confederation elections, became a
member of the Peter Mitchell government and was the
first member for Carleton in the first Dominion Parlia-
ment. He died during the first Session. Mr. Connell was
making a strong speech in favour of Confederation and
incidentally referred to the opinion of Benjamin Franklin
on the question of federation of the American colonies.

[ 90 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

"Mr. Franklin," he continued, "stood by his post."
Mr. Anglin — "He was Postmaster General."
Mr. Connell — "Yes, and lost his office, too."
Mr. Anglin — "Yes, but his head is on the stamps,
now."

The official reporter of the debate thought this worthy
of preservation and so it finds a place in this narration.
But if Mr. Connell made a mistake when he put his
own head instead of the Queen's on the postage stamp,
he made no mistake, when in his able speech in support
of Confederation he called attention to the fertility of
the valley of the Saskatchewan and predicted the
importance of its acquisition by the Dominion of Canada.
New Brunswick has been represented as being fickle
on the question of Confederation. As a matter of fact
the electors were perplexed and uncertain how to vote.
But a year's deliberation, and representation to this loyal
ptople that the Queen herself favoured union, furthered
by the threatened Fenian invasion, the generally dis-
ordered state of affairs on the boundary, the repeal of
the reciprocity treaty, all made for a change in sentiment.
The last expression of opinion was the sober after
thought of the electors.

The result of the second New Brunswick election was
the speedy accomplishment of Confederation. The
Canadian and Nova Scotia legislatures had passed the
Quebec resolutions. There now only remained to be done,
the meeting in London, and the approval by concurrent
legislation of the Imperial Parliament. That being
achieved, the New Dominion started on its career, with
the hearty blessing of the mother country, on the first day
of July, 1867.

It is true that the resolutions were passed in the Nova
Scotia Legislature against the strong protest of Joseph
Howe and his influential supporters, who asked that
the people be first consulted. It is true that the Legisla-
ture that passed the resolutions was hopelessly defeated
on the first occasion of going to the polls. It is true that

[ 91 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

on the occasion of the first election to the New Dominion
Parliament, only one Confederate was elected in the
person of the dauntless and doughty Dr. Tupper, whose
courage does not appear to have been one whit dampened
by this disheartening attitude of his native province. It
is true that Howe, at first, went to England and used his
powers to enable the withdrawal of Nova Scotia from
the union ; but it is also true that upon an appeal having
been made to his loyalty and patriotism, together with
the offer of "better terms" for his province, the old
veteran laid aside his political weapons of war and joined
in with the government, just trying to get on its feet at
the new capital of Ottawa. The opposition of Howe
withdrawn, antagonism to Confederation in Nova Scotia
somewhat lessened, but it was many years before a large
portion of the people in that old province became
reconciled to the new condition of affairs, and there
continued for some time to be talk of "secession."

Newfoundland remained out, so far, permanently.
Prince Edward Island, where the first step was taken to
formulate the scheme, dissatisfied with the conditions
offered to her, refused to become one of the original
partners, and it was not until five years later, that the
Island was glad enough to accept terms which brought
her within the fold.

A thousand miles or more from the western boundary
of the Province of Ontario as it then was, lay what was
known as Rupert's Land, or in more popular designation,
the Red River country. The Red River country was not
without its incidents of stirring history, perhaps more in
the way of adventure than romance. The Hudson's Bay
Company held this vast territory in its firm grasp, as it
had held it since the days when the gay monarch so
lightly endowed it with powers full and plenipotentiary.
At this period of time, it is difficult to say whether the
Hudson's Bay Company was more of a curse or a
blessing to the land. Monopolies of the kind are not
generally counted as national blessings. The power of

[ 92 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

the company was tremendous and extended to the fullest
extent over life and property. It dealt justly, where it
could, without interfering with its own interest, but its
eye was on the main chance, not for the country but for
the company. The few settlers — the Selkirk colony — and
others, who had been induced to travel over the ocean
and across the vast desolate country between civilization
and their destination, used and inured as they were to
hardship and trials, experienced hardships and trials
beyond the worst of their bad dreams. The bitter winter
weather, and the lack of suitable accommodation, the
remoteness from any large or even small centre of
population, the intense isolation and loneliness, all made
their lot the very heaviest of all the pioneers in British
America.

When the Northwest Company was formed and
entered into competition with its ancient rival, the old
Hudson's Bay Company, there was war to the knife
between the two corporations, and the unhappy settlers
found themselves in the unenviable position of being
between the upper and nether millstone. Slowly a settle-
ment gathered about Fort Garry, at the junction of the
Red and Assiniboine rivers. Across the Red arose the
Christian temple of St. Boniface, "with its turrets twain"
immortalized by the Quaker poet, Whittier, who pictured
the weary boatman journeying down the river at the
close of day —

"The voyager smiles as he listens to the sound that

grows apace,
Well he knows the vesper ringing of the bells of St.

Boniface,
The bells of the Roman mission that call from their

turrets twain.
To the boatman on the river and the hunter on the

plain."

The Dominion of Canada having started duly on its
career, was not satisfied to mark time. Its inaugurators

[ 93 J

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

proceeded at once to take steps to enlarge its boundaries,
with the object of securing control of all the territory
westward to the Pacific Ocean. The first step was the
acquisition of the Red River country, after much
negotiation effected through the offices of the two
governments, Imperial and Dominion, and the company's
officials in London. The terms were liberal enough to
the company, in a money grant of a million and half
dollars, and about one-tenth of the land concerned. Even
then the local representatives of the company do not
appear to have been satisfied.

However, a new province, Manitoba, was formed.
There was nothing to indicate a wonderful future for
this acquisition. At the time the population was only
some ten thousand. Much trouble ensued before the first
western province was enabled to function in such a way
as to lead to the immense development that has taken
place in something over half a century of time.

The trouble, and serious enough, it became, was caused
by Louis Riel, an intelligent and shrewd Metis or half-
breed, partly Scandinavian, partly French, partly Indian,
whose ultimate fate might have been quite different had
he possessed anything of a balanced mind. He exercised
much influence over his fellow half-breeds and the
Indians, and had the sympathy of a good many of the
French settlers. Persuading them, that under the new
order their rights were being invaded, and that their
lands would be taken from them, he was able to organize
a formidable armed party, with which the small loyal
police force and other inhabitants were quite unable to
cope. He took possession of the strategic points about
Fort Garry and St. Boniface, and ended by forming,
what he called a provisional government, which was to
control the situation, until such time as the United States
would take over the territory, or failing that, inde-
pendence. He imprisoned several of the loyal people, in
some cases, under conditions of extreme cruelty, and
placed the capsheaf on the crop of his insolence by the

[ 94 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

cold-blooded execution of one, Thomas Scott, a young
man from Ontario who refused to join in with him and
against whom, it was said, he bore a personal grudge.
Whatever of sympathy the provisional government may
have elicited in Canada, was speedily dissipated by the
severe treatment he meted out to his prisoners, and above
all by the atrocious murder — for it appears to have been
nothing less than murder — of Scott. It became'necessary
to dispatch a strong military expedition, at a considerable
expense, to the seat of trouble before order was restored.
Riel fled at the approach of the forces, and found a
refuge in the United States. In time he found his way
back to the West and might have lived down, in part at
all events, his unsavoury past, but the seeds of rebellion
appear to have been too deeply imbedded in his peculiar
nature. Less than twenty years later, this ill-starred
character was the prime factor in a much more formidable
insurrection, which originated away up in the Duck Lake
country and finally spread over a large portion of the
territories, and is known in the pages of Canadian history
as the North West Rebellion of 1885. Many civilian
lives were lost and many young Canadian military
volunteers made the supreme sacrifice on behalf of the
honour and the preservation of the new Dominion. It
was found necessary to call on the militia of all the
provinces for assistance in quelling this formidable
rebellion, and very gallantly did the youth of the country
respond to the call. In time the loyal forces prevailed.
Riel was captured. He was placed on trial and after a
hearing in which he was ably defended, was found guilty
of treason and rebellion, and in time, in spite of all
efforts made on his behalf, was executed.

Manitoba became a duly organized ])rovincc within the
Dominion, and the whole of the territory between the
United States boundary and the Arctic region was
added.

On the west of the Rocky Mountains was a large and
rich country, a goodly part of it with enviable climatic

[ 95 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

conditions. For some time after it became the undisputed
possession of Britain its control was placed in the hands
of the Hudson's Bay Company, but their management of
affairs not proving satisfactory, the government withdrew
the mandate. As settlers arrived and located there came
demands for some sort of representative government,
which was granted. At first there were two colonies. At
a later period they united under the name of British
Columbia. Soon after the accomplishment of Confedera-
tion British Columbia made overtures for reception into
the union, which were favourably received, and the result
was the admission of the Pacific province, on the
condition that within two years afterwards a railroad to
connect it with the other portions of Canada, should be
commenced and within ten years thereafter completed.

The construction of the Intercolonial, at the time
loomed up as a formidable undertaking, and so, indeed
it was. But as a public national work, it was alm.ost
trifling beside the gigantic task of building a railroad
from Western Ontario, through the bleak, inhospitable,
uninhabited, barren waste, around the shore of the great
Lake Superior, across the then desolate and wide prairie
— with its problematical future, — and then over the
almost inaccessible mountain chain separating the interior
from the coast, A young country as the Dominion then
was, to think of, let alone actually undertake, and within
a dozen years to accomplish such an undertaking, was
not the kind which having once tasted the sweets of
nationhood, would be likely to throw it lightly aside.
People and communities who talk glibly of separation
may take this lesson to heart.

Confederation came about on the first day of July
A. D. 1867. Four years later, to be precise, on the 20th
day of July, 1871, British Columbia entered as a full
fledged province, into the union, so at that early period,
this infant amongst the nations of the world which had
started out with the four old provinces of Nova Scotia,
New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario, had included a

[ 96 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

vast territory to the west in which the original provinces
could have been easily buried, and had at that early day
justified its claim to the motto which now underlies so
seemingly and fittingly, the new Canadian Coat of Arms,
"A mari usque ad mare." In the great lone land, which
Canada took over in faith, nothing doubting, there was
raised in the year of this writing, 1925, over 400,000,000
bushels of wheat to say nothing of other valuable crops.
In 1905 the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta were
created, and the Dominion of Canada became, as far as
provincial organization is concerned, as it is today.

97

CHAPTER XI.

Sir John A. MacdoJiald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier — Sir
John in Power — A Stormy Debate — Building of the
Canadian Pacific Railway.

'IR John A. Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier
will remain, for a long time to come, the out-
standing figures in recent Canadian history. They
were alike and unalike, physically, temperamentally and
politically. Each was a statesman, a true Canadian and
devoted to the interests of his country as he saw it, and
each was a politician, not altogether averse to the trick
of the politician — according to his opponents, each was a
crafty politician. Each was a strong party man and
really believed that his party should govern the country,
because, practically, all of political virtue was in his
party. But, on the contra account. Sir John was a
Conservative and Imperialist, though by no means an
Imperialist of the extreme variety. Sir Wilfrid was, as
he loved to say, a Liberal of the Liberals, a Liberal of
the old English school, but, he was not a radical. The
childhood and youth of the two was as different as could
be imagined. Born in Scotland, Sir John's youth was
spent about Kingston, where he imbued the views of the
Loyalists and the Family Compact party. Sir Wilfrid
was born in a remote hamlet in a remote county of
Quebec, where old-fashioned French Canadian atmos-
phere prevailed. But he knew all about the history of the
rebels, — as Sir John would have called them, — the
patriots as he called them, and he admired them. Sir John
bore quite a physical resemblance to Disraeli, whom he
knew well, and with whom to some extent he was thrown
in contact in his public capacity. Sir Wilfrid bore about
as much resemblance to Sir John. While Sir John and
Disraeli were something of personal and political
friends, Sir Wilfrid bestowed his political affection on
Mr. Gladstone, whom he met several times before he
became premier and with whom he had his photograph

[ 98 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

taken — the two side by side. Several years ago a news-
paper gave copies of this picture to its subscribers, and
it is to be seen in many homes to this day.

It is hard for politicians to avoid the telling of a
certain number of white lies, and one looks for them to
indulge in some sort of equivocation at times, even if they
do not go the whole way recommended by Machiavelli
in his Prince. When in the heat of the national policy
election in 1878, Sir John telegraphed to a friend in
Saint John, "no increase (in the tariff) only a readjust-
ment," he was thinking of the effect of his message on
the election of his friend, Mr. Tilley, rather than on the
exact truth of it. When Sir Wilfrid proclaimed from
the housetops, as he liked to do, that he had but one
political war cry, "I am a Canadian, my platform is
Canada," and that he made use of it wherever he went,
he knew very well that these words in Toronto, or any
other English-speaking centre, meant a very different
thing to an audience, than the same words, "Je suis
Canadien, mon platforme c'est Canada," meant to the
habitant in rural Quebec, where the only Canadian is
the French Canadien. Sir John had the heavier of the
tasks to carry out, for he was, as his generous opponent
put it after his death, pre-eminently the Father of Con-
federation. Sir Wilfrid did not have very many difficult
questions to solve, although the Manitoba school question
with its race and religion setting, caused him some
anxiety if he did ride into power on its back, and he had
a bad quarter of an hour several years later, over the
question of sending troops to the seat of war in South
Africa.

Sir John A. Macdonald or "John A." — he was
scarcely ever referred to as Macdonald — was certainly a
remarkable character. He possessed wisdom, sagacity,
firmness, moderation, courage, caution, humour and good
humour to such a degree as is seldom found in one
individual. He could put off any importunate suitor for
office with a story and a promise. An Indian chief, some-

[ 99 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

what irritated by his procrastination, from day to day,
nicknamed him, "Old Tomorrow." On the occasion of
his death, London Punch took up this cue and drew an
affectionate cartoon of "Old Tomorrow" with an accom-
panying suitable bit of verse.

His kindness to young men starting in life has often
been mentioned. The writer had an instance of it in his
own case. Detailed to interview the old chieftain for a
Boston paper, when he was a very raw cub of a reporter,
he was shown into the room, where sat Sir John and his
secretary. The reporter was tongue-tied — had stage
fright. But with an easy turned phrase about Boston,
Sir John put him at his ease and then gave him an
interview on the fisheries question, which won the offer
of a position on one of the Boston dailies. The writer
remembers Sir John in the House of Commons in the
late eighties. He was surrounded by his trusty lieu-
tenants. Sir Hector Langevin, Sir Adolphe Chapleau,
Sir George Foster, Sir Adolphe Caron, Sir C. H. Tupper,
Sir John Carling and others. There seemed to be nothing
but knights about in those days when Sirs were created
with almost as much ease as Justices of the Peace. At
that time he was without the active support in the House
of his two old time supporters, Tilley and Tupper.
Mr. Tilley, who had become Sir Leonard Tilley, in far
from robust health, had retired from active political life
to the dignified position of lieutenant governor of his
native province, where he had rendered such valuable
public service, and to which he was such a credit. He
has long since joined the great majority and is remem-
bered with affection and esteem in New Brunswick today.
An excellent likeness, the statue in King Square, Saint
John, perpetuates his memory. Dr. Tupper, then
created a baronet, had accepted the position of High
Commissioner for Canada in England, a position his
unique personality was well calculated to inaugurate. He
was as forceful in England as in Canada and certainly
kept Canada "on the map." A very old man he died full

[ 100 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

of years and honours. His attempt to carry the Conser-
vative party to victory in 1896 was unsuccessful, as
probably any leader whom the party had chosen at that
particular time would have found to be the case.

Opposite sat Mr, Alex. Mackenzie, then an invalid,
who was not able to make a speech, but when he did
interject, received the applause of both sides of the
House; Mr. Edward Blake, the sarcastic and almost
bitter Sir Richard Cartwright, Mr. Mills, Mr. Laurier,
Mr. Davies and others. It was a fine ensemble of clever
men of whom Canada has reason to be proud. Sir John
did not speak very often, but when he did, he was, of
course, listened to with the utmost attention. He was
fond of an apt story and frequently introduced one into
the course of his speech. A case in point was on the
occasion of the celebrated Jesuits Estates Bill. This
question had caused a terrible hubbub in Ontario and
racial and religious feeling ran high. There was much
talk of equal rights. Everyone who is at all familiar with
the event remembers the stand taken by the late
Dal ton McCarthy and all about the attitude of the
"noble thirteen," and the medals a proud city awarded
them. But Sir John was not to be perturbed. In spite
of the excitement in the Chamber just before the division,
his speech was calm and placid. He was, he said, now
getting to be an old man and he remembered many
occasions when for a time there was great excitement and
upon sober reflection things would adjust themselves. So,
he thought it would be on this occasion and then he told
the Jew story. A Jew being very hungry, was tempted
to take a piece of ham at a friend's house, in the country.
He was very hungry and the ham tempted him. Never-
theless, afterwards, his conscience troubled him not a
little. As he said good-bye to his host, and passed out of
the door, there was a tremendous clap of thunder. "Mein
gracious," said the Jew, "what a row over a little piece
of pork." Sir John was roundly reproved for his levity
on such a serious and solemn occasion. The occasion, it

I 101 J

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

was said, was not one for trifling, and making jokes. It
was too momentous. Yet, in the light of the years that
have passed, Sir John was not far wrong. Perhaps it
was a row over a little piece of pork. Anyway, it was
over a bill passed by the Mercier (Quebec) Legislature
to indemnify the Jesuit Order for certain lands originally
belonging to them and which had been appropriated by
the government, many years ago, which bill the Dominion
Government was asked, by a resolution moved by
Col. O'Brien, to disallow. The debate was of a high
order, the speeches of Dalton McCarthy, on the one hand,
and of Sir John Thompson, the Minister of Justice, on
the other, being particularly able. Sir John Macdonald
could in his speeches, if he was particularly moved, arise
to a height of eloquence, of which he, himself, had no
conception — somewhat after the manner of Lincoln in his
remarkable Gettysburg address. The election of 1891
was very bitter and hotly contested. The old chieftain
found himself confronted with a united and strong
opposition, supporting a policy which appealed to the
commercial instincts of a commercially inclined people.
It was the well remembered unrestricted reciprocity or
commercial union election. Goldwin Smith, with his
facile, able, and at times penetrating pen, was in out-
spoken support of the opposition and lent all his talents
to the cause. Erastus Wiman, a Canadian, who had
become prominent in the States, was on this side making
speeches all over Ontario. And the main body of the
Liberal party was hand in glove with the new policy
which was to lead the people of Canada into hitherto
unknown prosperity, and the Liberal party, incidentally,
into a long time hitherto unknown power. Only one of
the leaders held aloof, but he was an important leader —
Edward Blake. He kept silent, and out of the election
contest. After it was over, he published a letter ex-
pressing his dissent altogether from the policy of the
party of which he had been such a brilliant, if a coldly
brilliant, light. But Sir John arose at least to the height

[ 102 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

of the politician, even if not to that of the statesman. It
was the occasion when in his manifesto to the people he
enunciated the famous passage, "A British subject I was
born, a British subject 1 will die." He had a good oppor-
tunity to work this in — not that he was insincere, because
he was sincere in his attachment to British connection —
but because Wiman and some of the others were using
language implying that a union of the two countries,
politically, or at least commercially, would be the proper
and most logical policy for both. Indeed, the New York
Sun, which was taking an unusual interest in the election,
was openly advocating the political union of the two
countries, in a series of clever editorials. Sincere, no
doubt, the advocates of unrestricted reciprocity were,
believing that it would be of vast advantage to Canada,
and would strengthen rather than weaken the tie of
British connection, as a prosperous people would not be
a dissatisfied people, and equally sincere was Sir John
in his opposition to the policy, and in his belief that in
the end, it would be to the disadvantage of, and would
lead to the obliteration of Canada from the face of the
continent. At a great meeting in Toronto, when the old
Academy of Music on King street was crowded to over-
flowing, Sir John made a strong speech, closing with a
peroration, which in its very simplicity arose to the real
height of eloquence. Pointing out that the policy
propounded by the Opposition, of unrestricted reciprocity
or commercial union would eventually lead to a political
union, whereby the "glorious name of Canada would be
wiped out," he added, in a low pitched emphatic and yet
penetrating voice, which he could use with such dramatic
effect, "I had rather the grass were growing green over
my head than that I should live to see the degradation of
the country that I have loved so faithfully and have
served so long." There was an instant of tense silence
and then a tremendous ovation of applause from the vast
audience. A Boston reporter, who had come to Toronto
to report on the election, remarked "The crowd is with
Macdonald."

I 103 j

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

Sir John was not only the foremost statesman Canada
produced, without question, but he was the longest in
power, and upon him were thrown the heaviest burdens
of government. From Confederation until 1873, when
he was defeated on the Pacific "scandal," the charge that
Sir Hugh Allan had contributed large campaign funds
to the Conservative party in consideration of securing
the contract to build the Canadian Pacific Railway, he
guided the ship of state. Many, not far-seeing, thought
that his fall in 1873 was the last of him — that he had
done his work, but, as all know, he came smiling to the
front of the ring at the battle of 1878, and with the cry
of the National policy — protection and "Canada for the
Canadians," won a sweeping victory. From that time
till his death in 1891, he was Prime Minister. He had
many very difficult problems to solve, during his long
tenure of office. He had the two Riel rebellions to deal
with. It was while he was premier that the great West
was added to the Dominion, and there were many diffi-
culties in this situation. Perhaps he was not the actual
originator of the National policy, but at all events he
was its chief endorser and he advocated it before the
people and put it into practice in Parliament. When he
talked of the big factories to go up in Ontario, and the
prices the farmers would get for their produce, the old
Tory yeomen recalled the adage, "weavil came in with
the Grits and prosperity with John A." It was he who
had most to do with the construction of the Canadian
Pacific Railway, not the actual construction, but the
making of the construction possible. He was ably assisted
in this by Sir Charles Tupper, whose efforts in this
connection can hardly be overrated, but when all is said
and done. Sir John was at the helm, and the ship must
go in the direction he steered it.

So closely is the Canadian Pacific Railway connected
with the history and the making of Canada, such a
marvellous illustration of pluck and faith and endurance
was its construction, so amazing has been its growth and

[ 104 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

development, so extensive have become its ramifications,
that something more than a mere note of its building is
due in any history of the Dominion. This great work
was not easily done. There were opponents to it, in the
House and out of it. As in all such cases, the estimated
cost was found to be inadequate, and the problem of
financing such a vast undertaking became most perplex-
ing. Smith and Stephen, afterwards Lord Strathcona
and Lord Mountstephen, were again and again almost in
despair. Their own and any other credit they could
arrange was pledged to the hilt. At one time, at all
events, it seemed that the great undertaking must cease,
but courage carried them through — and they were sup-
ported by the Prime Minister to the fullest extent, he
could, with any hope of popular approval, go. This
book purports to be a history, not an arithmetic or
statistical record, and hence dates and figures, except
when very material, are not featured. A chronology of
dates is easily procurable. But in dealing with the
Canadian Pacific Railway it is necessary to go into
figures, and figures counting into the millions. It has
been shown that a condition of British Columbia coming
into the union was the completion of a transcontinental
road within twelve years. After the defeat of the
Macdonald government in 1873, Mr. Alexander
Mackenzie, the opposition leader, went to the people
and was returned with a large following. One of the
first tasks of the new government was to deal with the
construction of the Pacific railway. Mr. Mackenzie
was an extremely honest and conscientious man. He
recognized that he was the guardian and trustee of the
national funds. Naturally economical and prudent in
his own private affairs, he adopted a policy of economy
and prudence in the government of the Dominion. A
Liberal, he was conservative. He believed in learning
to crawl before attempting to walk, and the attempt to
walk was not to be made too soon in fear of the danger
of a fall. So, the railway policy under his regime was

f io> 1

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

conservative and gradual. He was for using the great
water stretches on the lakes, rather than building a line
along their inhospitable shores. He was for securing
settlers for the great West and for the construction of
the line of the railway gradually, as the settlers located
and as their needs required. It was a safe policy, but
not a courageous one, nor one which proclaimed much
faith in the future of the country. When Sir John and
his friends came galloping back into power, "much
to the surprise of himself and everybody else," as
Mr. Cartwright more bitterly than truthfully put it, the
policy was changed. Sir John was a Conservative, and
he was both liberal and progressive, and full of faith,
as the leading promoter of Confederation should be.
Barely was the new government seated in the saddle
before the railway policy was taken up, and a company
having been duly organized, of whom three of the
principals were Mr. R. B. Angus, Mr. Donald Smith,
(Lord Strathcona), and Mr. George Stephen, (Lord
Mountstephen), a contract was awarded.

The company was given control of the railway already
constructed, some eight hundred miles, $25,000,000 in
cash, and 25,000,000 acres of land, and they were to
have the road completed by 1891. The company set
upon this prodigious work with a will. Early in its
operation two men, both citizens of the United States,
came to take a hand in the task. Their names were
William Van Home and Thomas Shaughnessy. Each
became president of the company, and each received
recognition in the way of titles from the Queen, and each
became a most pronounced Canadian and a believer in
the greatness of the British Empire. Quite soon after
the road was well under way, finances became low.

The expense was something almost inconceivable.
Every difficulty in railway engineering and railway
construction was met with, and money disappeared, like
snow in the face of an April sun. Some help must be
had. The men at the head had pledged all the credit

[ 106 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

they had and were down to the last dollar in their own
pockets. The only resort was to the government, and
the government was being attacked from within and from
without for its extravagant policy with regard to the
railway, which would eventually, the critics said, ruin
the country. However, Sir John was tinally persuaded
upon to submit to his supporters a proposition for a
government loan of some $28,000,000. Before this was
done, Sir Charles Tupper, who held the rather novel
positions of Minister of Railways and High Commis-
sioner to England at one and the same time came to the
rescue. What between Sir John's irresistible powers of
persuasion and Sir Charles' indomitable optimism and
courage, the government caucus agreed to the loan,
which was promptly passed, through legislation, and the
directors of the company, who had come very near to the
extremity of forming themselves into a suicide club,
breathed freely. It is reported that some of them
solemnly assembled in a private room and then danced
a jig for an hour or two. But, even this assistance was
not sufficient. Then one of those ill winds that always
blow somebody good, came about in the North West
Rebellion of 1885. Troops had to be sent in large
numbers to the seat of the trouble, and the C. P. R.
handled the situation with such dispatch and with such
efficiency, that it was felt their contribution towards the
comparative early ending of the rebellion was invaluable.
So when the company went before Parliament and asked
for assistance, they were permitted to issue bonds to the
extent of $35,000,000, of which amount the government
guaranteed $25,000,000. This was the third and last
call, and from now on the sun of prosperity shone on the
intrepid builders.

Mr. Stephen went to England in trepidation as to
his ability to dispose of the bonds, but on his arrival
found the task easy of accomplishment, largely due, it is
said, to the influence of Sir Charles Tupper, who most
certainly was the firm, constant and untiring friend of

[ 107 1

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. From that time
on the work progressed consistently and with success,
and in November, 1885, the last spike was driven and
the great railway was, to use a slang but forcible ex-
pression, well set and away. In a year after completion
the government loan was paid in full. "It will either
make or break the country," the writer's father said,
speaking of the C. P. R., and, to a great extent, it has
made the country. Its development has been something,
as it has well been put, in the nature of a romance. Not
only is the continent spanned, so that its own line, save
a few miles through Maine, passes over Canadian terri-
tory from Vancouver, on the Pacific, to Saint John, its
Atlantic port, but great steamship lines ply on the two
oceans. Steamship loads of goods and carloads of goods
are constantly being hurried over ocean and rail from
China and Japan to Great Britain, and from Great
Britain to China and Japan. There is a connection with
an allied steamship line to Australia and a growing trade
is working in that direction, largely through the instru-
mentality of an agent of the C. P. R., who, appealing to
the Australian on the sentiment, "let the kangaroo and
the beaver shake hands," secured a first start on Austra-
lian Canadian commerce through the Port of Vancouver.
The C. P. R, has become the greatest common carrier,
as the law books have it, in the world, and while Imperial
and even international in its scope, it remains a Canadian
enterprise, with Canada first and last as its motto.

[ 108 ]

CHAPTER XII.

Sir Wilfrid Launer in Office — Attitude to the War — •
Sir Robert Borden and Union Goveriiment.

\^^HE death of Sir John Macdonald was a hard
l^ ) blow to the Conservative party, as the sudden
removal of any unquestioned leader and the
head of a cause always is. Long in power and
office, signs of dissension soon were evident. Sir John
Abbott was Premier for a short while, giving way
to Sir John Thompson, a gentleman of high char-
acter and much ability, who had been on the bench
in Nova Scotia, whence Sir John summoned him to serve
in his cabinet as Minister of Justice. Sir John Thompson
was a grave character, an entire contrast to the gay,
debonair leader who had piloted the ship of state for
many years. He was capable of making a great speech,
but his speeches were delivered as if he were giving
judgment from the bench, too lawyer-like, or perhaps we
should say, judge-like, to be suitable for parliamentary
debate. Sir John had the respect of everybody, and was
held in esteem by his political opponents. His sudden
death, while on a visit to the Queen at Windsor Castle,
was tragic. Divisions partly closed up, broke out anew.
Some of the party wanted Sir Mackenzie Bowell, who
succeeded Sir John Thompson, as Premier, for the then
approaching elections. Some wanted Sir Charles Tupper
to come over and handle the reins. The latter prevailed.
A serious problem in what is known as the Manitoba
School question had arisen. The Manitoba Legislature
in 1890 introduced a Public School Act whereby all
publicly aided schools were to be non-sectarian. The
Roman Catholic Episcopacy claimed that the rights of
the Catholic minority were "prejudically affected" by
this legislation contrary to the wording of the British
North America Act, and upon the matter going before
the Supreme Court of Canada, it was decided that the
contention was well founded, and that the Dominion

I 109 J

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

Parliament was empowered, under the conditions to
grant, what was called, remedial legislation, which would
compel Manitoba to continue to support separate schools
(that is schools where denominational religion is taught
as part of the curriculum), out of the public funds.

Such legislation was passed by the Federal Parliament,
not without strong opposition from members of the
government party, and this became the main issue in the
elections of 1896. Sir Charles Tupper went to the people
supported by a mandate from the Bishops of Quebec,
while Mr. Laurier, upon the ground that the remedial
legislation was an invasion of provincial rights, opposed
it. The result is well known. In spite of the episcopal
direction, Laurier swept Quebec and found himself with
a large following from Ontario and the rest of the
Dominion.

For fifteen years, that is from 1896 until 1911, the
Liberals remained in power. Their former occupancy of
the government benches, under Mr. Mackenzie was brief,
and there is nothing of great note to be remarked about
it. Perhaps the most important piece of legislation which
goes to the credit of Mr. Mackenzie, is the establishment,
of the Supreme Court of Canada, a tribunal that has
grown in the esteem of the public and in the opinion of
the legal profession ever since its foundation. Each
political party is jealous of appointments to the Supreme
Court being from the best qualified legal minds in the
land — a good augury for justice in the country in the
future.

Sir Wilfrid (for he was knighted not long after his
elevation, and he used to say rather in spite of his own
wishes) was not long in the Premier's chair before he
indicated that, whoever might be in his cabinet, he was
the master mind. He gathered about him a lot of Liberal
premiers and ex-premiers of the provinces, who, accus-
tomed to a "little brief authority," found it a bit hard
to knuckle under, but knuckle under they had to or step
out. Suave and courteous and polite and self-controlled,

[ no ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

Sir Wilfrid held as firm a hand on the baton of office as
ever his great predecessor, Sir John A. Macdonald, did.
During his long tenure of office, prosperity shone on
the Dominion, and it could no longer be said that
Providence only favoured the Conservatives. Although
his party had upheld and placed as a prominent plank
in their platform, a reduced tariff — a tariff for revenue
only — when Laurier came to deal with the situation he
made no radical changes, only such as were apparently
justifiable from changed conditions. Mr. Fielding, his
Finance Minister, was a very sane and sound man, and
under his management, business flourished, and manu-
facturers, confident in his support, branched out. There
continued to be a steady flow of immigration from
Europe to the western lands, and American farmers
began to find their way to the vacant lands in the prairie
provinces. Election after election found the government
strongly entrenched in spite of all efltorts of their
opponents to dislodge them. Early in his premiership,
Sir Wilfrid inaugurated the British preferential tariff, a
wise and statesman-like bit of legislation, which won him
considerable support from those impressed with Imperial
ideas, and caused a good deal of embarrassment to the
Opposition, who, while they could hardly oppose such a
pro-British policy, talked about waiting until concessions
were made at the other end. He introduced the penny
postage — a popular move and under which apparently
the postal receipts did not suffer much, if at all. While
he was at the head of affairs the new provinces of
Alberta and Saskatchewan were carved out of the North
West Territories and took their place amongst the
provinces of the Dominion, another transcontinental
railway was started, under an agreement between the
government and the Grand Trunk Railway Company,
and just before his defeat in 1911, a contract was let for
the building of the Hudson Bay Railway. His govern-
ment is also to be credited with the creation of the
Railway Commission.

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

It seemed to be a hard fate that a policy, to which
more or less both parties were committed, should have
been his undoing. Both parties, ever since Confederation,
had flirted with the policy of reciprocity with the United
States in the matter of natural products, the Liberals,
earnestly, and with the intention and wish to consummate
the union, the Conservatives, rather awkwardly and in
the nature of a philanderer. During the presidency of
Mr. Taft, finally an arrangement was reached for
reciprocal trade. The United States Congress passed an
act providing for it. Laurier, confident that this would
be a winning card, appealed to the people in 1911. But,
as the election contest went on, it became apparent that
sentiment was not favourable. Perhaps the incautious
statement made by the President to the American people,
that this policy would make Canada "an adjunct" to the
United States, had its effect. Perhaps it was felt that a
party which a few years before had favoured commtrcial
union and unrestricted reciprocity, would be apt to extend
the principle to the extent of hurting Canadian industry.
At all events, the opposition became very strong. And
the result was that Sir Wilfrid was defeated and went
out of office forever. He passed away, deeply regretted,
in February, 1919. His successor. Sir Robert Borden,
had scarcely become firmly set in harness before he was
called upon to carry on the affairs of the nation, during
the greatest war struggle in the history of mankind.

Sir Wilfrid Laurier will always remain a striking and
rather complex study. With his nationality and his early
bringing up, one is surprised, not so much that he
attained to the leadership of his party, or that he
eventually became Premier, but that for the long period
of fifteen years he could exercise such unquestioned sway
over his party. Once chosen as leader, his leadership was
never in question. There was no one to think of disputing
him, or if there was, the secret was kept very quiet. He
completely controlled the electors in his native province
of Quebec, who followed his lead almost to a con-

[ 112 ]

SIR WILFRID LAURIER.

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

stituency. Yet, he was also able to hold a generous
support from the sister province, and Nova Scotia upheld
him almost as solidly as Quebec. His personal magnetism
was strong. Every one thrown in contact with him was
impressed, both by his personal appearance and by his
manner. Proclaiming himself a democrat of the
democrats, he was aristocratic in his bearing and had
the grand manner. A Liberal of prominence, who was
in London at the coronation of King George, spoke of
Sir Wilfrid, in his knightly cloak, striding across the
floor of Westminster Abbey, a solitary figure, and not
altogether, without the knowledge that he was attracting
attention. Sir Wilfrid used to claim that his great work
was to bring the two races in Canada closer together.
Whether he really accomplished much in this respect
may be questioned, but he was certainly sincere in his
desire. To bring them more closely together than they
now are, can only be done by intermarriage and closer
social relations. And here steps in ecclesiastical authority,
and forbids that which economics would particularly
enjoin.

Sir Wilfrid's attitude in the Great War will always
remain puzzling. He gave his imquestioned support to
the government of Sir Robert Borden on the outbreak,
and every reasonable support during its continuance.
And yet, one cannot get away from the conviction that
he did not take it quite as seriously as did the government
leader. His point of view must have been different. It
was the difference between the English and the French
Canadian temperament and outlook. To the ordinary
French Canadian to this day, the greatest crime com-
mitted during the war appears to have been, not the
outrages committed by the German military, not the
policy of terrorism, not the sack of Belgium, but the
Conscription act passed by the Canadian Parliament.
The habitant in Quebec had very little sense of danger
in the war. He was much more afraid of his sons having
to go to the war, than of the Germans winning the war.

[ 113 J

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

Much of this was from ignorance of the real situation.
And Sir Wilfrid seemed to give encouragement to this
opinion, when he took his stand against the Conscription
act, and remained set and positive in his views, although
it lost him the following of many of his most earnest
supporters, who joined in with Sir Robert Borden and
other Conservatives in the forming of Union Govern-
ment. That the government declared against conscription
in the early days of the war is undoubtedly true — that
the war attained to such dimensions, and the outlook
became so deadly serious that they felt called upon to
reconsider their attitude and adopt this extreme measure,
is also true. In this case it might be argued that necessity
knows no promises. Yet, Sir Wilfrid evidently thought
conscription not only unnecessary but something in the
nature of a political crime.

Perhaps it was all psychological. The English
Canadian was dreadfully alarmed during the German
advance in the spring and summer of 1918. He feared,
and with the utmost reason, a German triumph or, at
the least, a neutral treaty of peace with the German army
and navy intact and the German Emperor — triumphant.
He knew that even after the Americans entered the war,
merchant ships were destroyed by the undersea boats
faster than ever before and faster than they could begin
to be replaced. And he felt that if Germany won, it
would be the humiliation of Canada as well as of
England and the other allies. But the French Canadian
apparently was not worrying. Possibly he had more
confidence in a good Providence watching over him.
Anyway he did not see the danger. To certain extent
Sir Wilfrid held this view.

His appeal to the country to support him in his
contest with the Union Government was unavailing.
Union Government was sustained and continued until
after the war was finished.

The long period during which Sir Wilfrid directed
affairs, will always be remembered as one of amazing

[ 114 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

development in the history of Canada, and he, himself,
will ever hold a place as a great Canadian statesman.
He had a fine judgment in the distinction between
Imperialism and Canadianism. His loyalty was never in
question, and his love for Canada great. Liberal in his
views, he was able to distinguish the weakness in the
character of his own fellow Canadian countrymen as well
as the strength. The name of Laurier will be one to
conjure with in the future.

With the war, or this country's participation in the
war, it is not the province of this short history to deal
further. Much about it has already been written, and
more will be written as time passes. The war is fresh in
the minds of the people, too fresh in the minds of those
who have life long sorrow as a result. Canada, which as
a country was already taking a leading place amongst
the peoples of the world, and towards which, as a home
for the farming population of older countries, attention
was directed, found herself at the close of this terrific
struggle more famed than ever. Her sons had worthily
upheld her honour. No soldiers, in courage and
resource, surpassed the Canadians. Officers and privates
alike distinguished themselves.

It is the fashion to sneer at Union Government, now
that the war peril is a thing of the past — like an
unpleasant dream — merely a memory. Party men on
both sides, of the extreme type, condemned it at the time
and have ridiculed it ever since. Yet it was a necessity.
If ever there was an occasion when the best men of both
parties should unite in giving their service to their
common country, it was at the time Union Government
was consummated, as much so at least as at Confedera-
tion, when something of the same kind was found
advisable.

Under Union Government the question of titles of
honour conferred on Canadians was dealt with in an
emphatic manner. Somebody had been recommending the
bestowal of these honours with a lavish hand. Not only

[ 11^ 1

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

was knighthood in flower, but it was in full bloom, and
peerages and baronetcies, which had been comparatively
rare, seemed hovering in the ofRng. So Parliament took
in hand to deal with the question for not only that time
but probably for all time, by the introduction of an
address to the King, praying that, "he should refrain
from conferring any title of honour or titular distinction
upon any of his subjects domiciled or ordinarily resident
in Canada, save such appellations as are of a professional
or vocational character or which pertain to an office."
There can be no mistaking this language. It is plain and
to the point. Since then no honours have been bestowed
on Canadians, and nobody seems to be any the worse.
The restoration of "titles" in Canada is a most unlikely
thing to happen.

Of Sir Robert Borden's contribution to the history of
Canada this is not the occasion nor the time to deal. He
is with us yet, in retirement but not in obscurity. Suffice
it to say that he was peculiarly adapted by temperament
and constitution to stand in the gap at such a trying
period in the history of the land. He, himself, would be
the last to claim brilliance for himself. But he had the
qualities of firmness, coolness and sound judgment,
constituting him a fitting character to control the helm.
Sir Robert's deliverance on the subject of Canada's
status in the world, is a masterpiece of constitutional
information, and will be cited by those who have been
watching or looking for some such pronouncement for
time to come. It is a deliverance that every student
should familiarize himself with.

f 116 ]

CHAPTER XIII.

National Railways — Canada's Coat of Arms and Flag —
Group Government — Politics to Date — Finis.

^^^'HE people of Canada, through an executive
^ J appointed by the government, are conducting a
vast railway system, covering a mileage of
upwards of 22,000 miles and giving employment to
about 100,000 people, in the Canadian National Rail-
ways. This vast network includes as its main contributing
factors, the Intercolonial Railway extending from
Halifax to Montreal, with its branches in Prince Edward
Island and elsewhere, the National Transcontinental,
the Grand Trunk and the Grand Trunk Pacific, the
Canadian Northern (McKenzie and Mann system), the
Hudson Bay Railway, as far as completed, and the
numberless feeders and branches to these larger trunks.
While Laurier was Premier an agreement was entered
into between the Government of Canada and the Grand
Trunk Railway for the building of a transcontinental
railway. The government undertook to build the railway
from Moncton to Winnipeg, with the understanding that
after its completion it would be leased to the Grand
Trunk for a period of fifty years, rental to be paid after
the third year's operation. The Grand Trunk was to
build the line from Winnipeg to Prince Rupert on the
Pacific Coast. But the war changed everything, or at all
events it served as a reason for the non-fulfillment of
the conditions on the part of the railway company, in
connection with finances, and the result was that the
government became obliged to take over the whole
system, and make the best job they could of what
appeared to be an embarrassing situation. This gigantic
national undertaking imposes a heavy burden on the tax
[)ayers of a young country like Canada, and the deficit
figures in each year's operations, have appeared most
alarming. But there are now many indications that the
darkest days are over and that within a decade or so this

[ 117 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

immense national railway will be self-supporting. Again,
railways are of colonizing value, even if they do not pay
dividends. Settlers cannot be expected to take up the
vast lands in the Peace River country and other terri-
tories unless there is a railway reasonably near. The
railway must precede, in these days, the colonist. Already
a healthy stream of immigration is tending towards
Canada and there are signs of pre-war prosperity. In
connection with the Canadian National Railways it may
be said that, it owns a merchant marine fleet of more
than sixty vessels, built during the war for war economic
purposes, and now carrying on a world wide trade. The
Transcontinental and the G. T. P. were built of easy
grades, so that the heaviest train loads can be easily
hauled. It was also built as a national undertaking, and
the agitation that has arisen, for the use of Canadian
ports for the shipment of Canadian produce, is not only
reasonable, but brings to the fore and presents before the
governments and people, the very idea which was in the
minds of Sir Wilfrid and his colleagues when they
entered into such a heavy contract as the building of an
ocean to ocean railway from a Canadian port on the
Pacific, all through Canadian territory to a Canadian
port on the Atlantic.

Within the recent years Canada has adopted a new
coat of arms. Originally the coat of arms consisted of a
shield made up of the coats of arms of the old provinces
in the Confederation. With the coming in of the western
provinces, it was found, from the point of heraldry, that
the addition of so many more designs would make a
cumbrous and inartistic conglomeration. So it was
decided to make a change, and a new design was formally
and officially authorized by His Majesty the King.
Briefly outlined, it consists of the arms of England,
Scotland, Ireland and France, with, as the heraldry
experts say, "a difference to mark the arms of Canada,"
namely on the lower third of the shield, a sprig of maple
leaf in a silver field. The entire shield has for "sup-

[ 118 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

porters" a lion and unicorn, slightly different from those
on the Royal Coat of Arms, and the crest of Canada is
a lion holding in its paw a red maple leaf, a symbol of
sacrifice.

With the adoption of the new coat of arms came the
question of a change in the Canadian flag. The change
has been made simply by the substitution of the shield
proper in the new coat of arms, on the fly of the red and
blue ensigns, for the former design. And just here, a
brief discussion on the flag question may not be altogether
out of place. That there is a "distinctive flag of the
Dominion of Canada" is unquestionable, for it is so
called in the document authorizing its use. As far back
as 1886, by a Commission of the Lord High Admiral of
England, police ships in the Canadian service were
authorized to fly the blue ensign of His Majesty's fleet,
with the arms of the Dominion in the fly thereof.

At a later period, the use of the Canadian flag was
extended to ships of the Canadian navy, and to all armed
vessels. It was in the year 1891 that the red ensign of
British shipping with the Canadian coat of arms in the
fly was authorized for Canadian shipping. The Canadian
red ensign is a familiar flag in any Canadian port, and
in any foreign port where Canadian vessels go, and they
are many. It may be said that the new design, as it
appears on the flags, is certainly a much more artistic
object than the old one. Officially on land, the Union
Jack proper is the flag. It is properly flown on all public
buildings. Equally official is the Canadian flag on ships
of the Canadian fleet and on other Canadian shipping.
As to private use, that is a matter of taste. There is no
law prohibiting a Canadian from flying the Canadian
ensign at his own flag pole, nor a Canadian child from
carrying it in his hand and waving it on school and other
public celebrations. More than this, it is absolutely a
British flag, with only the "difference" of the Canadian
coat of arms on the fly. Punch, so celebrated for its
serious cartoons, after the Battle of Ypres, when the

[ 119 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

Canadians held back the Germans and won the admira-
tion of the world, published as its leading design a
Canadian soldier, in one hand holding his uplifted rifle,
and in the other draping the "distinctive flag of the
Dominion of Canada." And Punch is a thoroughly loyal,
patriotic, British and Imperial journal.

In bringing this relation of events in the history of
Canada to an end it is not the intention to deal, but in the
briefest manner, with the present situation. Before the
life of the Union Government Parliament was brought
to a close, Sir Robert Borden retired from the premier-
ship, and Mr. Arthur Meighen formed a government,
which, after carrying on for awhile, appealed to
the people, in December, 1921, and was defeated,
Mr. Mackenzie King and the Liberals having by far
the largest group, with a strong body of Progressives,
from the West, mostly, in second place and the
Conservatives the smallest body numerically. Mr. King
formed a government and with the help of the Pro-
gressives, which he found absolutely necessary, he
conducted the affairs of the country until the last of
October, 1925, when the electorate returned a new
parliament with Mr. Meighen and his Conservative
followers, the largest group, but not a plurality, the
Liberals much diminished in numbers in second place,
and an also diminished body of Progressives at the foot
of the poll. Mr. King and many of his cabinet were
defeated. The Progressives, although not half the
number they were in the previous parliament, absolutely
hold the balance of power. Parliament met early in
January, 1926, and upon the hrst vote, Mr. Mackenzie
King had a majority of three. And so the matter stands
at the time of writing.

Apparently Canada is about to have the experience of
other countries in which popular government prevails,
in facing "groups." It would seem to be an evolution of
our parliamentary system, and instead of reviling it, the
better course would be to prepare to meet it, remembering

[ 120 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

that many of the reforms and changes which we have
found necessary in our political system, were considered
by our fathers as dangerous radicalism, and departure
from precedent which could bring nothing but calamity
ill its wake. The good old days when an ordinary
member for Parliament, suited his constituents, if he
could be counted upon to cast the straight party vote on
each division, and it mattered not if his oratorical powers
were limited to saying "Yea, yea," and "Nay, nay," are
passed. Now the electors require as their member a man
who can take his proper place in Parliament, the speak-
ing place of the nation. Aloreover, members are more on
a level, intellectually, with each other. The leaders do
not overtower their followers as they used to do, the
result of more diffuse and general education. Men are
more independent and wince under the lash of the party
whip. And so, from individual thought, comes individual
initiative, and the formation of "groups" representing
something different from the old party war cries. With
us this is particularly marked in the west. In the east,
party allegiance, a tradition since before the days of
responsible government, still holds sway. A group of
today may increase or diminish at the next election, but
it is hardly likely to disappear utterly, and if it does
another will soon rise in its place. The wisdom of
statesmanship would demand that such a situation be
met squarely and honestly and recognized as a new
political development. To continually cry, "we must get
back to the two party system," is something of the nature
of the child's cry for the moon. In the past, Canada has
passed through many crises, and there have been
"deadlocks" again and again, but her statesmen were
equal to each situation as it arose, and as much is to be
expected of those who at present fill their seats.

It is now high time that this brief survey of some of
the high spots in Canada's history was brought to a
close. The attempt has been to write a book, which the
busy man on the train or elsewhere may read with some

[ 121 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

interest and at the same time form an idea of the salient
events in the development of this vast country. It is also
hoped that the newcomer may find the work informative,
and not tiresome. It has been the wish to avoid heaviness
and wearisomeness in detail. Perhaps the book might
properly be called a narrative. If so, well, so the purpose
ot the author is satisfied. It is not for one moment
claimed that all the high spots have been seen or pointed
out.

The vision of each of us is limited, and only those
heights coming under the vision of the author have been
noted. Many and no doubt important ones have been
missed. He can truthfully say that he has been put to
much work in reading, studying, and in research. It has
been a labour of love, and one of profit, too — though not
by any means financial. As these closing lines are
written he puts aside his pen with the confidence that,
notwithstanding errors of commission and omission, he
has done his best. He feels that Canada is indeed a
great country, which, in spite of mistakes in the past,
will and must go on to a full fruition of her destiny. A
nation within the wide confines of the British Common-
wealth of nations, attached to the motherland and to the
sister dominions, by a tie none the less strong if almost
invisible, allied to old France through the origin of one-
third of her population, in close proximity and friendly
intercourse with the great Anglo-Saxon republic to the
south, she takes her steps forward nothing doubting of
the future. She seeks no further independence, than she
already has, and she seeks not annexation to another
country, however powerful and however prosperous. And
she is determined that the great pact of Confederation,
brought about, after much mental labour and travail of
soul, by our fathers, which raised a lot of disunited
colonies into the magnificent nation of the Canadian
people, shall not lightly be broken, by their descendants,
or by strangers who have settled in her midst. The
Confederation must, at all price, be kept, unimpaired.

[ 122 ]

HIGH SPOTS IN CANADIAN HISTORY

Should an attempt be made to break it, her sons will rise
in their might, as they have risen on other great crises —
and in the words of her national song — a song fit both
in words and music to take its place among the great
nation songs of the world, exclaim —

"O, Canada ! O, Canada ! We stand on guard for thee."

[ i:^^ ]

O Xi

to

University of Toronto
Library

H

«

a

<D

I.
O

3

O

-H
CQ

d

3j

•H

o

QQ
-P

a

00

QO

DO NOT

REMOVE

THE

CARD

FROM

THIS

POCKET

Acme Library Card Pocket
Under Pat "Ref . Index FUe"

Made by LIBRARY BUREAU